Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope and the High Energy Stereoscopic System tagged posts

An illustration of NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope orbiting Earth. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab

The center of our Milky Way contains a ‘trap’ that concentrates some of the highest-energy cosmic rays, among the fastest particles in the galaxy, a combined analysis of data from NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope and the High Energy Stereoscopic System, a ground-based observatory in Namibia, suggests.

“Our results suggest that most of the cosmic rays populating the innermost region of our galaxy, and especially the most energetic ones, are produced in active regions beyond the galactic center and later slowed there through interactions with gas clouds,” said lead author Daniele Gaggero at the University of Amsterdam...