Previous
abstract 
Next
abstract
BATSE, the Burst and Transient Source Experiment on the Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory, has been providing a nearly continuous, all-sky monitoring capability above ~20 keV since its launch in April 1991. A wide variety of astrophysical, solar, and geophysical phenomena have been observed and studied in detail by this experiment. Perhaps the most surprising observation has been the detection of an isotropic, yet inhomogeneous distribution of over one thousand gamma ray bursts. This has led many to infer a cosmological distance to the sources of these enigmatic objects. About twenty hard x-ray and gamma-ray pulsars have been observed; the nearly-continuous monitoring of them has allowed unprecedented timing observations. Earth occultation monitoring and imaging techniques have also been developed and continuously improved to detect and study a wide range of high-energy sources over the entire sky. For example, two Galactic relativistic jet transient sources have been studied in detail, and at least thirty galactic and three extragalactic hard x-ray sources are nearly continuously monitored. The experiment and a sample of the wide range of phenomena observed by BATSE will be described.
