INTEGRAL Picture Of the Month
December 2008

INTEGRAL POM
(Click to download full resolution)

6 years young and moving on.....

Not too long ago, on 17 October 2008, scientists using the INTEGRAL gamma-ray observatory, launched on 17 October 2002, celebrated six very successful years of the mission in space!

INTEGRAL continues to provide a unique facility for studying the high energy sky, in particular thanks to its spectral capabilities, with no replacement currently planned. Instruments and spacecraft are continuing to perform well and the scientific output keeps the community busy as shown in this picture taken during the "Polarimetry days in Rome". This two-day workshop, held on 16 & 17 October 2008 aimed at bringing together scientists active in different fields from radio to gamma-rays to focus on the opportunities offered by this new window, both from the observational and theoretical viewpoints.

A significant step forward in high-energy polarimetry has been achieved with the recent INTEGRAL discovery of a high level of polarisation in the non-pulsed soft gamma ray photons from the Crab ( http://integral.esac.esa.int/POMSep2008.html) with SPI ( A.J. Dean et al.: 2008, Science, 321, 1183) and IBIS ( M. Forot et al.: 2008, ApJL in press, arXiv:0809.1292v3). After the initial discovery of X-ray polarisation from the Crab, in 1976, with the OSO-8 satellite, more than 3 decades have passed before it had been possible to extend this result to higher energies.

One of the main "actors" during the Rome workshop, pictured above, was Prof. Anthony J. Dean, University of Southampton, cutting the cake (inset). It was Tony's relentless insistence which led him and Jim Matteson (UC San Diego), representing a wide international community of scientists from Europe and USA, to propose the INTEGRAL mission to ESA, back in 1989, almost 2 decades ago....

We are all looking forward to more years of discoveries and exciting results.

(Photos courtesy of Angela Bazzano, INAF-IASF, Rome)

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