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Searching the heavens
May 01, 2008A new space mission, due to launch this month, is going to shed light on some of the most extreme astrophysical processes in nature - including pulsars, remnants of supernovae, and supermassive black holes. It could even help us comprehend the origin and distribution of dark matter, write three scientists currently preparing for the GLAST mission from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Centre in Greenbelt, Maryland, USA, in this month's Physics World.
The Gamma-Ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST), to be launched on 16 May 2008, is a four-tonne observatory packed with state-of-the-art particle detectors that will study the gamma-ray sky in unprecedented detail.
Gamma rays are a form of electromagnetic radiation with much higher frequency and energy than visible light, UV light or even X-rays. Having such high energy, gamma rays are hard to collect and focus in the way that a conventional telescope does with visible light. Gamma rays are therefore the most difficult form of electromagnetic radiation to track in space.
Whereas visible light reveals thousands of stars and individual planets moving slowly across the sky, studying the skies at gamma-ray frequencies reveals a much weirder picture of space.
Gamma rays are not produced by hot, glowing objects, but from collisions between charged, very rapidly moving, particles and matter or light. The high frequency photons that are emitted from these collisions provide a glimpse of the most extreme astrophysical processes known.
Black holes, for example, accelerate matter to produce extreme energies in active galaxies. The gamma rays emitted in these scenarios have the equivalent energy to that of all the stars in an entire galaxy over all wavelengths.
Until now, however, existing ground-based gamma-ray detectors have not been sophisticated enough to measure these emissions in any detail over long periods. The astrophysicists cite looking for signatures of as-yet-unknown fundamental physical processes as a key reason for embarking on this project.
Julie McEnery, Steve Ritz and Neil Gehrels of NASA's Goddard Space Centre, write, "We expect GLAST to have a large impact on many areas of astrophysics but what is most exciting are the surprises: with any luck, the greatest GLAST science has not even been thought of yet."
Institute of Physics
Whereas visible light reveals thousands of stars and individual planets moving slowly across the sky, studying the skies at gamma-ray frequencies reveals a much weirder picture of space.
Gamma rays are not produced by hot, glowing objects, but from collisions between charged, very rapidly moving, particles and matter or light. The high frequency photons that are emitted from these collisions provide a glimpse of the most extreme astrophysical processes known.
Black holes, for example, accelerate matter to produce extreme energies in active galaxies. The gamma rays emitted in these scenarios have the equivalent energy to that of all the stars in an entire galaxy over all wavelengths.
Until now, however, existing ground-based gamma-ray detectors have not been sophisticated enough to measure these emissions in any detail over long periods. The astrophysicists cite looking for signatures of as-yet-unknown fundamental physical processes as a key reason for embarking on this project.
Julie McEnery, Steve Ritz and Neil Gehrels of NASA's Goddard Space Centre, write, "We expect GLAST to have a large impact on many areas of astrophysics but what is most exciting are the surprises: with any luck, the greatest GLAST science has not even been thought of yet."
Institute of Physics
Gamma Ray Current Events and Gamma Ray News RSSIowa State researchers contribute to discovery of gamma rays from starburst galaxy
Iowa State University astrophysicists contributed to the recent discovery that a galaxy quickly creating new stars is also a source of high energy gamma rays.
Starburst galaxy sheds light on longstanding cosmic mystery
An international collaboration that includes scientists from the University of Delaware's Bartol Research Institute in the Department of Physics and Astronomy has discovered very-high-energy gamma rays in the Cigar Galaxy (M82), a bright galaxy filled with exploding stars 12 million light years from Earth.
NASA's Fermi Telescope Detects Gamma-Ray From
Nearby galaxies undergoing a furious pace of star formation also emit lots of gamma rays, say astronomers using NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope.
Blast from the past gives clues about early universe
Astronomers using the National Science Foundation's Very Large Array (VLA) radio telescope have gained tantalizing insights into the nature of the most distant object ever observed in the Universe -- a gigantic stellar explosion known as a Gamma Ray Burst (GRB).
Fermi telescope caps its first year with a glimpse of space-time
During its first year of operations, NASA's Fermi Gamma Ray Space Telescope mapped the extreme sky with unprecedented resolution and sensitivity.
Invading black holes explain cosmic flashes
Black holes are invading stars, providing a radical explanation to bright flashes in the universe that are one of the biggest mysteries in astronomy today.
Fermi Large Area Telescope reveals pulsing gamma-ray sources
Scientists at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) Space Science Division and a team of international researchers have positively identified cosmic sources of gamma-ray emissions through the discovery of 16 pulsating neutron stars.
New experiment could reveal make-up of the universe
The detectors will become part of the Advanced Gamma Tracking Array (AGATA) experiment, currently based in Italy, which aims to create a 'fingerprint' of the inside of the atomic nucleus to understand the structure of all matter in the Universe, including human beings and the stars.
Successful completion of first riser-drilling operations in earthquake zone
Kumano Basin off Kii Peninsula, approximately 58 km southeast of Japan- Despite harsh weather and ocean conditions, and complex geological characteristics of its drill site, the deep-sea drilling vessel CHIKYU, for the first time in the history of scientific ocean drilling, conducted riser-drilling operations to drill successfully down to a depth of 1,603.7 meters beneath the seafloor (at water depth of 2,054 meters).
Researchers report successful riser-drilling operations in seismogenic zone
Kumano Basin off Kii Peninsula, approximately 58 km southeast of Japan- Despite harsh atmospheric and ocean conditions, and complex geological characteristics of its drill site, the deep-sea drilling vessel CHIKYU, for the first time in the history of scientific ocean drilling, conducted riser-drilling operations to successfully drill down to a depth of 1,603.7 meters beneath the sea floor (at water depth of 2,054 meters).
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