Basic results
- The EGRET instrument conducted the first all sky survey above 100 MeV. Using four years of data it discovered 271 sources, 170 of which were unidentified.
- The COMPTEL instrument completed an all sky map of 26Al (a radioactive isotope of aluminum).
- The OSSE instrument completed the most comprehensive survey of the galactic center, and discovered a possible antimatter "cloud" above the center.
- The BATSE instrument averaged one gamma ray burst event detection per day for a total of approximately 2700 detections. It definitively showed that the majority of gamma-ray bursts must originate in distant galaxies, not nearby in our own Milky Way, and therefore must be enormously energetic.
- The discovery of the first four soft gamma ray repeaters; these sources were relatively weak, mostly below 100 keV and had unpredictable periods of activity and inactivity
- The separation of GRBs into two time profiles: short duration GRBs that last less than 2 seconds, and long duration GRBs that last longer than this.
GRB 990123
Main article: GRB 990123
Gamma ray burst 990123 (23 January 1999) was one of the brightest bursts recorded at the time, and was the first GRB with an optical afterglow observed during the prompt gamma ray emission (a reverse shock flash). This allowed astronomers to measure a redshift of 1.6 and a distance of 3.2 Gpc (10 Gly). Combining the measured energy of the burst in gamma-rays and the distance, the total emitted energy assuming an isotropic explosion could be deduced and resulted in the direct conversion of approximately two solar masses into energy. This finally convinced the community that GRB afterglows resulted from highly collimated explosions, which strongly reduced the needed energy budget.
Miscellaneous results
- The completion of both a pulsar survey and a supernova remnant survey
- The discovery of terrestrial gamma ray sources in 1994 that came from thunderclouds
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