News From the Field
Astronomers Measure the Elusive Extragalactic Background Light
May 24, 2013
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Measuring the extragalactic background light (EBL) is no simple task, complicated by the fact that the Earth is lodged inside a bright solar system and a bright Milky Way. Now, a team of astronomers has come up with a solution that ingeniously overcomes the technical challenges of measuring EBL. The researchers propose that one answer to the problem of measuring EBL lies in measuring the attenuation--or weakening--of very-high-energy gamma rays from distant blazars.Full StorySource
University of California, Riverside
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