INTEGRAL Picture Of the Month
January 2022

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17-year INTEGRAL hard X-ray sky in one shot

Thanks to the long-term operations of INTEGRAL, a large archive of unique observations of the hard X-ray sky has been accumulated. Taking advantage of the data gathered over 17 years with IBIS, a survey of hard X-ray sources in the 17-60 keV band has been conducted. The survey provides also flux information in different energy bands up to 290 keV. This new hard X-ray all-sky survey includes a number of deep extragalactic fields and the deepest ever hard X-ray survey of our Galaxy. The catalog of sources includes 929 objects detected on time-averaged sky map regions, i.e., mainly dominated by persistent hard X-ray emitters. Among the identified sources of known or suspected nature, 376 are associated with the Galaxy and Magellanic clouds, including 145 low-mass and 115 high-mass X-ray binaries, 79 cataclysmic variables, and 37 of other types. 440 are extragalactic, including 429 active galactic nuclei (AGNs), 2 ultra-luminous sources, one supernova (AT2018cow) and 8 galaxy clusters. 113 sources remain unclassified. 46 of these objects are detected in the hard X-ray band for the first time.

The image shows an interactive map, created on the basis of the 17-year (2003-2019) sky images obtained with IBIS in the 30-80 keV energy band. One can move around on the map, by using your mouse. It is proposed to switch on a full-screen mode. Some of the brightest and most famous galactic and extragalactic X-ray emitters are marked with squares for reference. Note that around some very bright sources the characteristic systematic noise appears in the shape of crosses or circles. The position of the Galactic plane can be easily recognized by an impressive horizontal band of X-ray sources.

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