Astronomers working with Fermi -- a mission that is mapping the sky in gamma rays -- have just released a new catalog of objects detected by the spacecraft. They've re-analyzed two years worth of data and have found nearly 2000 objects blasting out this super-high-energy form of light. Here is the all-sky map they made from that data:
[Click to enhulkenate, and see a labeled version.] The map is set up in galactic coordinates, so the Milky Way itself runs across the center. There are a lot of gamma-ray sources in our galaxy, most of which are bright simply because they're close. Others are actually luminous sources like the Crab Nebula, various pulsars, and other violent objects. The map is very similar to one released by Fermi a while back, but this new one is more sensitive, and can see fainter objects. About half the detected sources are active galaxies: ...
