Universe's high-energy haze gets murkier

[n2doc]

23:39 03 March 2010 by Rachel Courtland

The universe's most powerful particle accelerators are responsible for just a fraction of the fog of gamma-ray light beyond the Milky Way, a new study suggests. The source of the rest remains a mystery, but dark matter could be a contributor.

The gamma-ray sky is dominated by the glow of our Milky Way as well as other known galaxies and individual neutron stars. But the universe is also aglow with a diffuse haze of gamma-ray light, produced by sources that may be too distant, dim, or diffuse to resolve individually.

By convention, astrophysicists have long assumed that most – if not all – of this gamma-ray fog gets its start inside galaxies whose supermassive black holes are spewing jets of charged particles into space as they feed on surrounding matter.

But a new analysis of data collected by NASA's Fermi telescope suggests these so-called active galactic nuclei (AGN) account for no more than 30 per cent of the universe's gamma-ray glow.

"Most of it – 70 per cent of the background – is unexplained at the moment," says study leader Marco Ajello of the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology in Stanford, California. Ajello spoke with reporters on Tuesday at a meeting of the High Energy Astrophysics Division of the American Astronomical Society in Waikoloa, Hawaii.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18608-universes-highenergy-haze-gets-murkier.html

Starships....lots and lots of starships.....

[HysteryDiagnosis]

1. Interesting that.