2026-07-072026-07-07http://salesiana.dossiersoluciones.com/handle/123456789/11634During remarkable flaring activity in 1997 Markarian 501 was the brightest source in the sky at TeV energies, outshining the Crab Nebula by a factor of up to 10. Periods of flaring activity each lasting a few days were observed simultaneously by several gamma ray telescopes. Contemporaneous multiwavelength observations in April 1997 show that a substantial fraction of the total AGN power is at TeV energies indicating that high energy processes dominate the energetics of this object. Rapid variability, on time scales of less than a day, and a flat spectrum extending up to at least 10 TeV characterize this object. Results of 1997 observations by 6 telescopes are summarized and some of the implications of these results are discussed.15 pages, 8 figures, LaTeX. Paper is based on several talks given in a Highlight Session on Markarian 501 at the 25th International Cosmic Ray Conference, Durban, 1997 (in press)Astrophysicstext