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How do scientists "see" gamma-rays?
Cosmic gamma-rays
are difficult to detect for at least two reasons: (1) there are not many
of them compared to other things that "look" like cosmic gamma-rays
to a detector, but aren't; and (2) they have so much energy that it is hard to
"capture" one at all!
The noise or
background against which a "real" cosmic gamma-ray must be seen is
about 1000 times stronger or brighter or more intense than the gamma-ray the
scientist is looking for. This makes it very hard to pick out "what is
real and what isn't". The primary source of the noise is cosmic rays.
These energetic particles interact with stuff in the Earth's atmosphere and
with the satellite
materials to produce "noise", or unwanted, non-cosmic,
gamma-rays in the detector. Figuring out how to separate the real photons
from the noise photons is quite a chore for a high-energy astronomer.
Since gamma-rays cannot be focused by conventional telescope techniques,
i.e. lenses and mirrors, the challenge of gamma-ray astronomers is to
capture individual gamma-ray photons however they can, and gather as much
information as possible from each one. Gamma-ray photons have so much energy
that they like to pass right through most materials without interacting with
them -- so you wouldn't even know that the gamma-ray had been there! How,
then, do we 'detect' gamma-rays? We pick certain special kinds of materials
that the gamma-ray photon WILL interact with, resulting in a spark or a glow
that can be analyzed by scientists. Devices called spark chambers and
scintillation detectors are used to record the passage, arrival time,
trajectory, and energy of the gamma-ray.
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