INTEGRAL serendipitous observations of solar and terrestrial X-rays and gamma rays
arXiv:2104.06073 · doi:10.1016/j.newar.2021.101616
Abstract
ESA's INTEGRAL space mission has achieved unique results for solar and terrestrial physics, although spacecraft operations nominally excluded the possibility to point at the Sun or the Earth. The Earth avoidance was, however, exceptionally relaxed for special occultation observations of the Cosmic X-ray Background (CXB), which on some occasions allowed the detection of strong X-ray auroral emission. In addition, the most intense solar flares can be bright enough to be detectable from outside the field of view of the main instruments. This article presents for the first time the auroral observations by INTEGRAL and reviews earlier studies of the most intense solar flares. We end by briefly summarising the studies of the Earth's radiation belts, which can be considered as another topic of serendipitous science with INTEGRAL.
arXiv comment10 pages, 8 figures, to be published in the "15 years of INTEGRAL" Volume of New Astronomy Reviews
References in corpus (17)
- ISGRI: the INTEGRAL Soft Gamma-Ray Imager
- The INTEGRAL Science Data Centre (ISDC)
- The INTEGRAL/IBIS Scientific Data Analysis
- INTEGRAL observations of the cosmic X-ray background in the 5-100 keV range via occultation by the Earth
- Properties of Energetic Ions in the Solar Atmosphere from γ -Ray and Neutron Observations
- INTEGRAL hard X-ray spectra of the cosmic X-ray background and Galactic ridge emission
- Characteristics of Sustained >100 MeV Gamma-ray Emission Associated with Solar Flares
- Properties of the energetic particle distributions during the October 28, 2003 solar flare from INTEGRAL/SPI observations
- Hard X-ray emission of the Earth's atmosphere: Monte Carlo simulations
- Solar Neutron Events of October-November 2003
- Radiation environment along the INTEGRAL orbit measured with the IREM monitor
- First Terrestrial Soft X-ray Auroral Observation by The Chandra X-ray Observatory
- Non-Thermal "Burst-on-Tail" of Long-Duration Solar Event on 26 October 2003
- High resolution gamma ray spectroscopy of flares on the east and west limbs of the Sun
- Exploring the capabilities of the Anti-Coincidence Shield of the INTEGRAL spectrometer to study solar flares
- Physical implications of INTEGRAL/SPI gamma-ray line measurements of the 2003 October 28 solar flare
- Analysis of the new INTEGRAL Earth observations to measure the cosmic X-ray background