The Galactic Bulge as seen by INTEGRAL
Date: 17 October 2012
Copyright: ESA/INTEGRAL/JEM-X/IBIS/Optical image: ESO & S. Brunier
This video shows the Galactic Bulge, the central part of our Galaxy, the Milky Way, as monitored by ESA's high-energy space observatory INTEGRAL.
Superimposed on an optical image of the Galactic Bulge are the sources of high-energy radiation detected by INTEGRAL. The video presents observations made between February 2005 and October 2011. The sources exhibit distinct changes in their brightness, even over very short periods of time.
The first part of the video combines data gathered with JEM-X at soft X-ray energies (between 3 and 25 keV; represented in red, orange and yellow) and with IBIS at hard X-ray energies (between 18 and 100 keV; represented in blue, purple and white).
The second part of the video shows data from these two instruments separately, highlighting the different appearance of cosmic sources in different bands of the electromagnetic spectrum.