Measurements by instruments on spacecraft have significantly advanced cosmochemistry. Spacecraft missions impose serious limitations on instrument volume, mass, and power, so adaptation of laboratory instruments drives technology. We describe three examples of flight instruments that collected cosmochemical data. Element analyses by Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometers on the Mars Exploration Rov...

We have carried out an extensive search for gamma-ray lines in the first year of public data from the Spectrometer (SPI) on the INTEGRAL mission. INTEGRAL has spent a large fraction of its observing time in the Galactic Plane with particular concentration in the Galactic Center (GC) region (∼ 3 Msec in the first year). Hence the most sensitive search regions are in the Galactic Plane and Center...

The Oriented Scintillation Spectrometer Experiment (OSSE) on the COMPTON Gamma Ray Observatory has undertaken comprehensive observations of many galactic sources since launch in April 1991. These include investigations of binary X-ray sources, pulsars, several transient X-ray sources observed as Targets-ofOpportunity, and Nova Cygni 1992. Multiple observations of the galactic center region were...

We present the sample of gamma-ray bursts detected with the anti-coincidence shield ACS of the spectrometer SPI on-board INTEGRAL for the first 26.5 months of mission operation (up to Jan 2005). SPI-ACS works as a nearly omnidirectional gamma-ray burst detector above ∼80 keV but lacks spatial and spectral information. In this catalogue, the properties derived from the 50 ms light curves (e.g., ...

We briefly review the fundamentals of nuclear gamma-ray line astronomy (radioactive astronomy), focusing on its role to decipher the intimate physics of supernovae, either immediatly (via 56 Co) or after a time delay (via 44 T i). All kinds of super-novae can be in principle tested through their radioactivities and their associated gamma-ray lines. Dedicated to the spectroscopy and imaging of c...

The spectrometer SPI is one of the main detectors of ESA’s INTEGRAL mission. The instrument offers two interesting and valuable capabilities for the detection of the prompt emission of Gamma-ray bursts. Within a field of view of 16 degrees, SPI is able to localize Gamma-ray bursts with an accuracy of 10 arcmin. The large anticoincidence shield, ACS, consisting of 512 kg of BGO crystals, detects...

Specific activity results of (51)Cr, (67)Ga, (99m)Tc and (201)Tl radioactive solutions, measured in different dose calibrators located at nuclear medicine services and in a calibrated HPGe gamma spectrometer, were compared. The HPGe spectrometer was calibrated in a well defined geometry by means of (60)Co, (133)Ba, (152)Eu, (166m)Ho and (241)Am sources, previously standardized in a 4pibeta-gamm...

The technical details and performance of the newly developed Sandwich spectrometer for ultra low-level gamma-ray spectrometry are presented. The spectrometer, which consists of two HPGe detectors, an active muon shield and a lead/copper shield with a convenient and rapid opening mechanism, is located in an underground laboratory at a depth of 500 m water equivalent. The data is collected in lis...

The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS-02) will be installed on the International Space Station (ISS). The gamma rays can be measured through gamma conversion into ee pair, before reaching the Silicon Tracker or by measurement of a photon hitting directly the Electromagnetic Calorimeter (ECAL). AMS-02 will provide precise gamma measurements in the GeV energy range, which is particularly relevant ...