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Space observatory in service from 1991 to 2000 that was designed to identify the sources of celestial gamma rays. It was named after physicist Arthur Holly Compton. Its mission was to determine whether gamma-ray bursts were in the Milky Way Galaxy or in remote galaxies. The satellite found that the bursts were scattered evenly across the sky, which showed that they came from outside the Milky Way Galaxy and were very powerful objects.
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