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Newly launched telescope scans gamma-ray sky
June 11, 2008
Courtesy NASA
and World Science staff
A telescope just launched into orbit will allow us to see objects in space in a new way, scientists say. This artist's concept
shows GLAST in orbit around Earth. Click here
for animation (mpeg4). (Courtesy NASA/ Goddard Space Flight Center
Conceptual Image Lab)
NASA’s Gamma-Ray Large Area Space Telescope, or GLAST, was launched aboard a rocket early
Wednesday afternoon from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in central Florida.
“The universe looks remarkably different outside the narrow range of colors in the spectrum that we can see with our eyes,” said David Thompson, deputy project scientist for the telescope at the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
The instrument “will give us a spectacular high-energy ‘gamma-ray vision,’” said Thompson. Gamma rays are the highest-energy form of light and cannot be seen by the naked eye.
“If you’re in space with gamma-ray vision, there are gamma-rays coming from all directions. The Milky Way would be a brilliant swath of light, and you’d see a sky constantly changing with objects dimming and brightening on different time scales. If you see a blinding flash, that would be a gamma-ray burst,” Thompson said, referring to blasts often associated with stellar explosions.
GLAST’s gamma-ray “vision” is expected to help scientists answer questions such as: How do black holes accelerate jets of material to nearly light speed? What is the mysterious “dark matter” believed to permeate the cosmos, but so far detected only through its
gravitational effects? Exactly what produces gamma-ray bursts? How do solar flares
generate high-energy particles? How do exotic, highly compact stars known as pulsars work? What is the origin of cosmic rays? and shat else out there is shining gamma rays?
“One thing that’s exciting is the cutting-edge instrumentation,” said Peter Michelson of Stanford University in California, principal investigator for the Large Area Space Telescope, or
LAT, aboard the satellite. Within the telescope, “gamma-rays convert to matter and anti-matter,” particles that are twins of ordinary matter particles but opposite in certain properties, he explained. “By the direction of the particles, we can detect which direction the gamma-ray came from and find its origin in space.”
The device is also “the first imaging gamma-ray observatory to survey the entire sky every three hours,” over a
great range of gamma-ray energies, said Steve Ritz, project scientist at Goddard. This is important because the gamma-ray sky is constantly changing in stunning ways. The observatory, a gamma-ray burst monitor, “spans a factor of 10 million in energy from the highest to the lowest energy gamma rays it will detect.”
Eighteen institutions in six countries—France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Sweden, and the U.S.—were involved in the creation of GLAST.
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Homepage image of GLAST liftoff courtesy NASA
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A telescope just launched into orbit will allow us to see objects in space in a new way, scientists say. NASA’s Gamma-Ray Large Area Space Telescope, or GLAST, was launched aboard a rocket early this afternoon from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in central Florida. “The Universe looks remarkably different outside the narrow range of colors in the spectrum that we can see with our eyes,” said David Thompson, deputy project scientist for the telescope at the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. The instrument “will give us a spectacular high-energy ‘gamma-ray vision,’“ said Thompson. Gamma rays are the highest-energy form of light and cannot be seen by the naked eye. “If you’re in space with gamma-ray vision, there are gamma-rays coming from all directions. The Milky Way would be a brilliant swath of light, and you’d see a sky constantly changing with objects dimming and brightening on different time scales. If you see a blinding flash, that would be a gamma-ray burst,” Thompson said, referring to blasts often associated with stellar explosions. GLAST’s gamma-ray “vision” is expected to help scientists answer questions such as: How do black holes accelerate jets of material to nearly light speed? What is the mysterious “dark matter” believed to permeate the cosmos, but so far detected only through its graviational effects? What precisely leads to gamma-ray bursts? How do solar flares generate high-energy particles? How do exotic, highly compact stars known as pulsars work? What is the origin of cosmic rays? and shat else out there is shining gamma rays? “One thing that’s exciting is the cutting-edge instrumentation,” said Peter Michelson of Stanford University in California, principal investigator for the Large Area Space Telescope, or LAT. Within the telescope, “gamma-rays convert to matter and anti-matter,” particles that are twins of ordinary matter particles but opposite in certain properties, he explained. “By the direction of the particles, we can detect which direction the gamma-ray came from and find its origin in space.” The device is also “the first imaging gamma-ray observatory to survey the entire sky every three hours,” over a “huge” range of gamma-ray energies said Steve Ritz, project scientist at Goddard. This is important because the gamma-ray sky is constantly changing in stunning ways. The observatory, a gamma-ray burst monitor, “spans a factor of 10 million in energy from the highest to the lowest energy gamma rays it will detect.” Eighteen institutions in six countries—France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Sweden, and the U.S.—were involved in the creation of GLAST.