  The study of dilepton and direct photon emission was one of the main topics
of the experimental program at the SPS devoted to the search of signals for QGP
formation. Three generations of experiments, Helios-3, NA38/NA50, CERES and
NA60 measured e+e- or mu+mu- production in various colliding systems and at
different energies. While lepton pair production in p-A collisions was found to
be reasonably well described by the expected sources, all experiments observed
in nuclear collisions an excess of the yield above the extrapolation from p-A.
As a result of this joint experimental effort we have currently a large amount
of information characterizing this excess: its mass spectrum over the full
range from 0.2 GeV/c^2 up to the J/psi, its transverse momentum spectra
including their mass dependence, its angular distributions, its dependence on
collision centrality over the complete range etc. Putting together all this
information leads to the conclusion that what we observe is the long-sought
thermal radiation from the fireball.
