gamma rays tagged posts

Gamma radiation converts methane into glycine and other complex molecules. Gamma radiation can convert methane into a wide variety of products at room temperature, including hydrocarbons, oxygen-containing molecules, and amino acids, reports a research team in the journal Angewandte Chemie. This type of reaction probably plays an important role in the formation of complex organic molecules in the universe — and possibly in the origin of life. They also open up new strategies for the industrial conversion of methane into high value-added products under mild conditions.

With these research results, the team led by Weixin Huang at the University of Science and Technology of China (Hefei) has contributed...

A team of researchers, including UvA physicists and astronomers, has studied gamma rays caused by the Sagittarius Dwarf, a small neighbouring galaxy of our Milky Way. They showed that all the observed gamma radiation can be explained by millisecond pulsars, and can therefore not be interpreted as a smoking gun signature for the presence of dark matter. The results were published in Nature Astronomy this week.

The center of our galaxy is blowing a pair of colossal bubbles ...

Unprecedented observations of a nova outburst in 2018 by a trio of satellites, including two NASA missions, have captured the first direct evidence that most of the explosion’s visible light arose from shock waves — abrupt changes of pressure and temperature formed in the explosion debris.

A nova is a sudden, short-lived brightening of an otherwise inconspicuous star...

This artist’s conception shows a blazar – the core of an active galaxy powered by a supermassive black hole. Scientists using the VERITAS array have detected gamma rays from the blazar TXS 0506+056, which is also thought to be a source of neutrinos. Credit: M. Weiss/CfA

The VERITAS array has confirmed the detection of gamma rays from the vicinity of a supermassive black hole. While these detections are relatively common for VERITAS, this black hole is potentially the first known astrophysical source of high-energy cosmic neutrinos, a type of ghostly subatomic particle.

On September 22, 2017 the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, a cubic-kilometer neutrino telescope located at the South Pole, detected a high-energy neutrino of potential astrophysical origin...