Gamma-ray Astronomy of the Solar System with the Fermi Large Area Telescope

Details Gamma-ray Astronomy of the Solar System with the Fermi Large Area Telescope Gamma-ray Astronomy of the Solar System with the Fermi Large Area Telescope

Jan 2009

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009aas...21335505m&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #213, #355.05; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 41, p.497

Statistics

Scientific paper

The Large Area Telescope (LAT), one of two instruments on the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope (formerly GLAST, launched June 11, 2008) is a pair conversion detector designed to study the gamma-ray sky in the energy range 20 MeV to >300; GeV. The LAT has detected high-energy gamma rays from the quiet sun and the moon, during the first few months of the mission, thus opening a new window for detailed gamma-ray science in the solar system. This emission is produced by interactions of cosmic rays; by nucleons with the solar and lunar surface, and electrons with solar photons in the heliosphere. The heliospheric emission is produced by inverse-Compton scattering and is predicted to be very extended, to cover in fact the entire sky. While both sun and moon were detected by EGRET on CGRO with low statistics, Fermi provides high-quality detections on a daily basis allow variability to be addressed. Such observations will provide a probe of the extreme conditions near the solar surface, and monitor the modulation of cosmic-rays over the inner heliosphere, impossible by any other means. Since at solar mininum Galactic cosmic rays have their maximum flux, we expect the gamma-ray emission to be brightest at this time. Fermi is the only gamma-ray mission capable of detecting the quiet sun and monitoring it over the full 24th solar cycle. We present first analyses including fluxes of lunar and solar disk and extended emission, and comparison with models.

Affiliated with

Also associated with

No associations

Rating

Gamma-ray Astronomy of the Solar System with the Fermi Large Area Telescope does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with Gamma-ray Astronomy of the Solar System with the Fermi Large Area Telescope, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Gamma-ray Astronomy of the Solar System with the Fermi Large Area Telescope will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-1700302