Feature
Text Size
Fermi Telescope Caps First Year With Glimpse of Space-Time: Briefing Materials
10.28.09
During its first year of operations, NASA's Fermi Gamma Ray Space Telescope mapped the extreme sky with unprecedented resolution and sensitivity.
It captured more than 1,000 discrete sources of gamma rays -- the highest-energy form of light. Capping these achievements was a measurement that provided rare experimental evidence about the very structure of space and time, unified as space-time in Einstein's theories. For the complete story, click here.
Teleconference Participants
Jon Morse, Astrophysics Division Director, NASA Headquarters
Julie McEnery, Project Scientist and Astrophysicist, Goddard Space Flight Center
Peter Michelson, LAT Principal Investigator, Stanford University
Robert Kirshner, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Mario Livio, Space Telescope Science Institute
Images and Multimedia in Support of the News Teleconference
› Download briefing presenters' slides (pdf)
Presenter: Julie McEnery, Project Scientist and Astrophysicist, Goddard Space Flight Center
|
Artist concept of the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope
Credit: NASA Goddard's Scientific Visualization Studio › Larger image |
|
This view of the gamma-ray sky is constructed from one year's worth of Fermi LAT observations. It is the best view of the extreme universe to date.
Credit: NASA Goddard's Scientific Visualization Studio › View video › Other versions from SVS |
|
This image shows the Fermi one-year, all-sky map, highlighting the north galactic polar region.
Credit: NASA/DOE/Fermi LAT Collaboration › Larger image |
|
Fermi has detected more than 1,000 gamma-ray sources. Half are associated with active galaxies, called blazars. This movie shows one year of blazar activity, starting on Aug. 4, 2008, around the galactic north pole.
Credit: NASA/DOE/Fermi LAT Collaboration › View video › Other versions from SVS |
Presenter: Peter Michelson, LAT Principal Investigator, Stanford University
|
This video shows an animator's concept of an X-ray binary neutron star system, similar to LSI +61 303, which Fermi observed.
Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center › View video › Other versions from SVS |
|
In this illustration, one photon (purple) carries a million times the energy of another (yellow). Some theorists predict travel delays for higher-energy photons, which interact more strongly with the proposed frothy nature of space-time. Yet Fermi data on two photons from a gamma-ray burst fail to show this effect. The animation below shows the delay scientists had expected to observe.
Credit: NASA/Sonoma State University/Aurore Simonnet › Larger image › View video › Other versions from SVS |
Supplemental Video
|
These animations show depictions of the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab › Video from SVS |
|
This animation shows how Fermi's Large Area Telescope (LAT) detects gamma rays.
Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab › Video from SVS |
|
This animation shows how Fermi was launched and deployed. At the time, the telescope went by the name GLAST (Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope). It was re-named to honor Nobel prize-winning physicist Enrico Fermi.
Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab › Video from SVS |
|
This video recaps the early months of Fermi's mission.
Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center › Video from SVS |
Related Links
› Fermi Telescope Caps First Year With Glimpse of Space-Time
› NASA's Fermi Finds Gamma-ray Galaxy Surprises
› NASA's Fermi Mission, Namibia's HESS Telescopes Explore a Blazar
› Active Galaxies Flare and Fade in Fermi Telescope All-Sky Movie
› Continent-sized Radio Telescope Takes Close-ups of Fermi Active Galaxies
› NASA's Fermi Telescope Probes Dozens of Pulsars