Mysterious Feature in Gamma-ray Sky

Produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute’s Office of Public Outreach in collaboration with NASA’s Universe of Learning partners: Caltech/IPAC, Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, and NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Video imagery:

·       Illustration of gamma ray sky including directional feature: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

·       Video showing telescope animation and gamma-ray feature: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

·       Map of the microwave sky with dipole feature: NASA / COBE Science Team

·       Comparison of gamma-ray and cosmic ray map: Kashlinsky et al. 2024 and the Pierre Auger Collaboration

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Several telescopic images appear in a montage. A traveling white horizontal line splits the screen then develops into text, News from the Universe. 

 

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January 30, 2024 - Mysterious feature in gamma-ray sky. 

 

Scientists analyzing 13 years of data from NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope found an unexpected and as-yet unexplained feature. 

 

Researchers removed known gamma-ray sources anc the central plane of our Milky Way galaxy in order to analyze the extragalactic gamma-ray background. 

 

On a telescopic image, one area has a red dot which is encircled twice. 

 

Text, The graphic red dot and circles indicate the direction from which more gamma rays than average seem to be arriving. 

 

The largest circle is labeled 95% confidence, and the smaller 68% confidence. 

 

Text, This research is intended to test the idea that the motion of our solar system through space is responsible for this gamma-ray structure, similar to what is seen in microwaves across the whole sky. 

 

The image transitions to have a wavy color pattern, with red mostly at the top and blue at the bottom. 

 

Text, Nasa's COBE (parentheses, Cosmic Background Explorer). The enhanced gamma-rays location did not align with the microwaves. 

 

The gamma-rays may be related to a concentrated area of ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays - accelerated charged particles of unknown origin. 

 

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The image with red circles is transposed with another image, which has the same circles at the same location. 

 

Text, The scientists think it's likely the two phenomena are linked - that as-yet unidentified sources are producing both the gamma rays and the ultrahigh-energy particles. 

 

This news was brought to you in part by Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt Maryland.