Fermi Telescope

12/11/2022

Please enjoy some cosmic fireworks to prepare for the holiday season!!!🎆

Astronomers around the world are captivated by an unusually bright and long-lasting pulse of high-energy radiation that swept over Earth Sunday, Oct. 9. The emission came from a gamma-ray burst (GRB) – the most powerful class of explosions in the universe – that ranks among the most luminous events known.

Many thanks to Norah Shannon for sharing this!

A powerful cosmic explosion detected by NASA's Fermi, Swift, and other missions ranks among the most luminous events known.

10/29/2022

"In the depths of the universe, the cores of two collapsed stars violently merge to release a burst of the deadliest and most powerful form of light, known as gamma rays. These beams of doom are unleashed upon their unfortunate surroundings, shining a million trillion times brighter than the Sun for up to 30 terrifying seconds. No spaceship will shield you from the blinding destruction of the gamma ray ghouls"!

Happy Halloween from our spooky family of cosmic mysteries!!!

In the depths of the universe, the cores of two collapsed stars violently merge to release a burst of the deadliest and most powerful form of light, known as gamma rays.

07/01/2022

🚨NERD ALERT🚨Supermassive black holes! Gravitational waves! Pulsar timing arrays! Gamma rays! 🛰💥📡🚨

"Our universe is a chaotic sea of ripples in space-time called gravitational waves. Astronomers think waves from orbiting pairs of supermassive black holes in distant galaxies are light-years long and have been trying to observe them for decades, and now they’re one step closer thanks to NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope".

Our universe is a chaotic sea of ripples in space-time called gravitational waves. Astronomers think waves from orbiting pairs of supermassive black holes in distant galaxies are light-years long and have been trying to observe them for decades, and now they’re one step closer thanks to NASA’s F...

09/25/2020

NASA released Friday the results of its first-ever agencywide economic impact report. Every state in the country benefits economically through NASA activities. Forty-three states have an economic impact of more than $10 million. Of those 43 states, eight have an economic impact of $1 billion or more.

We work in space, in the air and on the ground. We support 312,000 American jobs and $63 billion in economic output each year. We’re on our way to the Moon by 2024, but you can see our economic impact here and now. Take a deep dive: https://go.nasa.gov/2RW19Kv

06/13/2019

GRBs emit gamma rays, the highest-energy form of light. Most GRBs occur when some types of massive stars run out of fuel and collapse to create new black holes. Others happen when two neutron stars, superdense remnants of stellar explosions, merge. Both kinds of cataclysmic events create jets of particles that move near the speed of light. The gamma rays are produced in collisions of fast-moving material inside the jets and when the jets interact with the environment around the star.

Astronomers can distinguish the two GRB classes by the duration of their lower-energy gamma rays. Short bursts from neutron star mergers last less than 2 seconds, while long bursts typically continue for a minute or more. The new catalog, which includes 17 short and 169 long bursts, describes 186 events seen by Fermi’s Large Area Telescope (LAT) over the last 10 years.

For 10 years, NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has scanned the sky for gamma-ray bursts, the universe's most luminous explosions. A new catalog of the blasts provides scientists with fresh insights into how they work.

07/13/2018

Fermi has achieved a new first—identifying a monster black hole in a far-off galaxy as the source of a high-energy neutrino seen by the IceCube Neutrino Observatory.

For the first time ever, scientists using NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope have found the source of a high-energy neutrino from outside our galaxy.

06/11/2018

Happy 10th birthday Fermi!!!

10/16/2017

Two seconds after the gravitational signal, NASA's orbiting Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope picked up a blast of high-energy photons called a gamma ray burst. Within minutes, researchers at the Livingston and Virgo detectors confirmed the gravitational signal in their data. Still, it took LIGO the better part of an hour to issue a detailed alert, says Julie McEnery, an astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and a member of the Fermi team. McEnery says she found out about the gravitational signal as a coy rumor from a colleague who works on both Fermi and LIGO. "A half-hour [after the Fermi alert] we got an email that said, 'This gamma ray burst has an interesting friend,'" she says.

As expected, cosmic cataclysm is a scientific gold mine

06/12/2017

The Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope was launched on June 11, 2008. Happy birthday dear Fermi!

05/12/2017

NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope captures images of the universe in gamma rays, the most energetic form of light.

On April 12, one of the spacecraft’s instruments – the Large Area Telescope (LAT) – detected its billionth extraterrestrial gamma ray.

Since Fermi’s launch in 2008, the LAT has made a number of important discoveries of gamma-ray emissions from exotic sources in our galaxy and beyond.

SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory is a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science laboratory operated by Stanford University.

03/08/2017

A recent, spectacular set of improvements to Fermi data analysis, known as Pass 8, has substantially enhanced the sensitivity of LAT to gamma rays across the spectrum. Motivated by this increased sensitivity, a team of Fermi scientists has used the data from Pass 8 to search for especially distant gamma-ray-bright blazars.

Software improvements have allowed the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope to discover five gamma-ray blazars at high redshifts, opening a window to the early universe.

12/03/2016

Gamma rays are the most energetic type of light, packing a punch strong enough to pierce through metal or concrete barriers. More energetic than X-rays, they are born in the chaos of exploding stars, the annihilation of electrons and the decay of radioactive atoms.

From lightning to the death of electrons, the highest-energy form of light is everywhere.