(Animation) Model of Geminga's Gamma-Ray Halo (IMAGE)

NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

(Animation) Model of Geminga's Gamma-Ray Halo

Caption

This model of Geminga's gamma-ray halo shows how the emission changes at different energies, a result of two effects. The first is the pulsar's rapid motion through space over the decade Fermi's Large Area Telescope has observed it. Second, lower-energy particles travel much farther from the pulsar before they interact with starlight and boost it to gamma-ray energies. This is why the gamma-ray emission covers a larger area at lower energies. One GeV represents 1 billion electron volts -- billions of times the energy of visible light.

View animated GIF: https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/gemingamodellabels.gif

Credit

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/M. Di Mauro

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