 Penn State University researchers not only look at what is visible to the eye, but also detect and analyze astronomical phenomena at higher energies, like X-rays and gamma-rays. X-rays and gamma-rays have higher energies than both ultraviolet and visible light and typically result from very energetic processes such as supernova explosions, jets from neutron stars and black holes, and hot gas falling into black holes.
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 Penn State is a major center of activity on the observation and theory of gamma-ray bursts, as well as on developing instrumentation for detecting GRB. Gamma-ray bursts (GRB) are sudden, intense flashes of gamma-rays which, for a few blinding seconds, light up in an otherwise fairly dark gamma-ray sky.
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 Here at Penn State, rearchers look at many different aspects of neutron stars and pulsars to help them answer questions not only about these objects but also planets, black holes, and other occurances that may be located around them. Neutron stars are collapsed stars that are only visible though X-ray. Pulsars are objects that emit short intense bursts of radio waves, x-rays, or visible electromagnetic radiation at regular intervals.
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 At Penn State researchers are looking into the hearts of Active Galactic Nuclei that are thought to contain supermassive black holes. These supermassive black holes are thought to have formed from the accretion of matter onto a black hole or from the merger of star-sized black holes.
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 The very tenuous gas in the interior of the supernova remnant glows at X-ray wavelengths and can be observed by X-ray telescopes. X-ray observations of supernova remnants have been a valuable source of information on the interactions between the explosion and the surrounding gas, and have been used to create our present understanding of the supernova explosion.
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