Abstract
When Hess discovered the 'cosmic radiation’ in 1912 he thought that it comprised some sort of ultra-gamma radiation. Later work showed that the so-called ‘radiation’ consisted in fact of particles rather than quanta, and for many decades the particles and their interactions occupied the stage. It was not until the balloon experiments of the 1960s and, more particularly, the satellite work of Kraushaar and colleagues in 1967 that a small but finite flux of y-rays was definitely detected in the primary beam and the subject of y-ray astronomy could be regarded as having started. The first attempt at mapping the sky in y-rays was made by Fichtel and coworkers in 1972 with the SAS-2 satellite, and more recently the European COS-B satellite has continued this programme. The latter vehicle with its very impressive spark chamber detector was launched in 1975 and is still in orbit.
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Schedule a callMore From: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series A, Mathematical and Physical Sciences
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