While INTEGRALs instruments typically observe Galactic sources on the hundreds to thousands of pc scale, the closest vicinity to Earth, the solar system, has received almost no attention from INTEGRAL in its 18 yr mission life time. During an Earth occultation observation, IBIS could observe auroral X-ray emission from Earth in real time, showing the interactions of the solar wind with the magnetic field of Earth. Such auroral emission has also been measured from Jupiter, and found to not only be powered by solar activity, but by the planet itself. Most of the phenomena are restricted to photon energies of few keV, but electron bremsstrahlung can be expected up to the hard X-ray regime as suggested from a population of relativistic electrons in the Jupiter system. The true acceleration mechanism in the Jupiter system, and mechanisms of its local photon emission are yet to be determined.An almost neglected but significant contribution to the diffuse emission above 100 keV comes from the interaction of CRs with asteroids in the Main Belt (MB) between Mars and Jupiter: interactions of CRs with the asteroid material lead to the formation of excited nuclei, followed by de-excitation, and resulting in gamma-ray line emission, together with a bremsstrahlung continuum. Especially at the 511 keV line, such a contribution from the ecliptic may result in false inferences for the size of and flux from the bulge, halo, and disk. The modulated CR spectrum from local contributions by Jupiter might further alter these expectations. For this reason, INTEGRAL observations of Jupiter, which is capable to accelerate particles on its own, and of small solar system bodies along the ecliptic as targets for Galactic CRs will provide unique insights about the impact of local particle acceleration. Together with the in-situ particle detectors onboard the Juno mission, this presents one of the rare opportunities to link local measurements with remote high-energy observations.
Publications
A search for period changes of eight short-period Type II Cepheids - Yacob, Alemiye M., Berdnikov, Leonid N.,Pastukhova, Elena N.,Kniazev, Alexei Y.,Whitelock, Patricia A. (2022-10-01) http://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/#abs/2022MNRAS.516.2095Y
Primordial black hole dark matter in the context of extra dimensions - Friedlander, Avi, Mack, Katherine J.,Schon, Sarah,Song, Ningqiang,Vincent, Aaron C. (2022-05-01) http://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/#abs/2022PhRvD.105j3508F
Temporal Coverage
2021-01-31T00:27:45Z / 2022-01-15T11:49:31Z
Version
1.0
Mission Description
The INTEGRAL (International Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory) mission, launched by the European Space Agency (ESA) on October 17, 2002, was designed to study high-energy phenomena in the universe. INTEGRAL was operating until february 2025 and it was equipped with three high-energy instruments: the Imager on Board the INTEGRAL Satellite (IBIS), the Spectrometer on INTEGRAL (SPI), and the JEM-X (Joint European Monitor for X-rays). Its Optical Monitoring Camera (OMC) provided optical V-band magnitude measurements, complementing the high-energy observations.
