Speaker
Dr
Giovanni Piano
(INAF-IAPS Roma)
Description
The AGILE space mission, currently in its eight year of operations in orbit, obtained a large number of crucial and unexpected findings. We review the main results for both Galactic and extragalactic sources, and outline some of the most surprising discoveries: gamma-ray flares from the Crab Nebula, detection of HE emission from Cygnus X-1 and Cygnus X-3 in coincidence with special spectral states, identification of an unambiguous signature for hadronic cosmic rays in Supernova Remnants, very intense flaring from a class of Active Galactic Nuclei. AGILE is very actively continuing to observe the gamma-ray sky with very fast processing and alert capability for transient sources. Particular emphasis is now given to the study of the transient gamma-ray activity (possibly) associated with Galactic binaries, such as the "hidden" black hole system MWC 656 that was recently discovered thanks to an AGILE detection.
Author
Dr
Giovanni Piano
(INAF-IAPS Roma)
