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Results from Detailed Studies of X-Ray Sources

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 March 2016

R. Giacconi
R. Giacconi*
Affiliation:
American Science and Engineering, Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A.

Extract

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Since the results of early surveys revealed the existence of cosmic X-ray sources (Giacconi and Gursky, 1965), the major effort of X-ray astronomy has been devoted to the investigation of their nature. With the exception of the X-ray source in the Crab Nebula (Bowyer et al., 1964), an object well known prior to the discovery of its X-ray emission, the galactic X-ray sources which have been observed do not appear to coincide with conspicuous visible or radio objects.

The attempt to study their nature has proceeded along two main directions:

(a) Accurate determinations of celestial coordinates for the X-ray emitters permit the identification of their visible and radio counterparts. When a likely candidate is discovered, the techniques of optical astronomy yield information regarding the spectrum, size, distance, temporal variations and polarization of the radiation emitted by the object.

(b) The properties of the X-ray emitter are investigated by careful measurement of the angular size of the X-ray emitting region, its detailed spectrum and its polarization and variability.

Type
Joint Discussions
Information
Highlights of Astronomy , Volume 1: Highlights of Astronomy. As presented at the XIIIth General Assembly of the IAU, 1967 , 1968 , pp. 192 - 201
Copyright
Copyright © Reidel 1968

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