Transcripts of G2011-113_What_Are_Gamma_Rays_Revised_portal

Music Music Music Phil Plait: Gamma rays are the highest energy form of light. Dave Thompson: There's the light we see with our eyes, but their lots of other types of light. Gamma rays are the most energetic form of light, the most powerful. Valerie Connaughton: Gamma rays are the part of what we call the electromagnetic spectrum which starts in radio, at very long wavelengths, goes through optical, then through x-rays, and then gamma rays are the very highest energy form of that type of radiation. Neil Gehrels: The reason that it's important to look at the high-energy gamma rays is that many objects, the most violent and some of the most interesting objects in the universe emit most of their light in this high-energy gamma ray part. Phil Plait: And the only thing that can generate gamma rays are incredibly violent events, incredibly energetic events. And we're talking stars exploding and neutron stars with really strong magnetic fields and really exotic and strange objects like that. Isabelle Grenier: It's like a Christmas tree it's shining, and it's flaring and their are eruptions every day. Peter Michelson: Gamma-ray bursts being an example of something that, for a brief instant of time outshines the entire rest of the universe. Chip Meegan: These are the biggest explosions in the universe. Music Beeping Beeping