The AGILE mission: The first 2 years

We summarize here the main highlights of the AGILE astrophysics mission. The satellite, launched in April 2007, is devoted to gamma-ray observations in the 30 MeV–30 GeV energy range, with simultaneous hard X-ray imaging in the 18–60 keV band, and optimal timing capabilities for the study of transient phenomena. The very large field of view (2.5 sr) of the gamma-ray imager coupled with the hard X-ray monitoring capability makes AGILE well suited to study Galactic and extragalactic sources, as well as GRBs and other fast transients. AGILE reaches its optimal performance near 100 MeV with good imaging and sensitivity. Gamma-ray and hard X-ray sources can be monitored 14 times a day, and an extensive database has been obtained for a variety of sources. We summarize here the breakthroughs and most important results obtained for several sources including microquasars and other Galactic compact objects (most notably, the discovery of gamma-ray emission above 100 MeV from Cygnus X-3), Supernova Remnants and pulsar wind nebulae, gamma-ray pulsars, a bright class of blazars (3C 454.3, TXS 0716+714, HB 1510-089, Mrk 421), short and long GRBs (including the remarkable short burst GRB 090510), and terrestrial gamma-ray flashes (TGFs).