GAMMA RAYS

For the first time ever, scientists using Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope have found the source of a high-energy neutrino from outside our galaxy. This neutrino travelled 3.7 billion years at nearly light speed before being detected on Earth -- farther than any other neutrino we know the origin of. High-energy neutrinos are hard-to-catch particles that scientists think are created by the most powerful events in the cosmos, like galaxy mergers and material falling onto supermassive black holes. They travel a whisker shy of the speed of light and rarely interact with other matter, so they can travel unimpeded across billions of light-years. The IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the South Pole detected signs of a neutrino striking the Antarctic ice with an energy of about 300 trillion electron volts -- more than 45 times the energy achievable in the most powerful particle accelerator on Earth. This high energy strongly suggested that the neutrino had to be from beyond our solar system. Backtracking the path through IceCube indicated where in the sky the neutrino came from, and automated alerts notified astronomers around the globe to search this region for flares or outbursts that could be associated with the event. Data from Fermi’s Large Area Telescope revealed enhanced gamma-ray emission from a well-known active galaxy at the time the neutrino arrived. This active galaxy is a type called a blazar, where a supermassive black hole with millions to billions of times the Sun’s mass that blasts particle jets outward in opposite directions at nearly the speed of light. Blazars are especially bright and active because one of these jets happens to point almost directly toward Earth. Fermi showed that at the time of the neutrino detection, the blazar TXS 0506+056 was the most active it had been in a decade. The discovery is a giant leap forward in a growing field called multimessenger astronomy, where new cosmic signals like neutrinos and gravitational waves are definitively linked to sources that emit light. Light Years Away

The Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM) is one of the instruments aboard the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. The GBM studies gamma-ray bursts, the most powerful explosions in the universe, as well as other flashes of gamma rays. Gamma-ray bursts are created when massive stars collapse into black holes or when two superdense stars merge, also producing a black hole. The GBM sees these bursts across the entire sky, and scientists are using its observations to learn more about the universe. Music: The Success by Keys of Moon | https://soundcloud.com/keysofmoon Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com Credit:NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Shoshana Schlauderaff: Lead Producer Scott Wiessinger (USRA): Support Aaron E. Lepsch (ADNET Systems Inc.): Technical Support Jeanette Kazmierczak (University of Maryland College Park): Science Writer Judith Racusin (NASA/GSFC): Narrator This video is public domain and along with other supporting visualizations can be downloaded from the Scientific Visualization Studio at: https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/13041 If you liked this video, subscribe to the NASA Goddard YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/NASAExplorer Follow NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center · Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NASA.GSFC · Twitter https://twitter.com/NASAGoddard · Flickr https://www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc/ · Instagram https://www.instagram.com/nasagoddard/

Animation of a star exploding into a supernova and fueling a gamma-ray burst. Astronomers caught the enduring "afterglow" of one of these cataclysmic explosions with both ALMA and the VLA for the first time. The rebound, or reverse shock, triggered by the GRB’s powerful jets slamming into surrounding debris, lasted thousands of times longer than expected, giving astronomers an unprecedented glimpse into the structure and dynamics of the jets. Credit: NRAO/AUI/NSF; S. Dagnello

A single gamma ray carries millions of times the energy of a single photon of visible light. This means that gamma rays are produced only in the most convulsive environments in the universe – pulsars spinning inside huge magnetic fields, stars in binary systems devouring their partners, and black holes at the centers of galaxies swallowing gas clouds more massive than our sun. The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope was launched on June 11, 2008, to measure these extreme astronomical events. In this lecture, SLAC scientist Eric Charles describes how we observe astronomical gamma rays and why we must go to space to see them. Then he discusses how 10 years of observations from the Fermi Telescope have changed our understanding of the most violent objects in the universe. About the Speaker: Eric Charles grew up in New Mexico. He received his PhD in high-energy particle physics from the University of Wisconsin in 2002. After three years as a postdoctoral fellow at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, he moved to SLAC in 2005 to help with the construction and testing of the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, and stayed on as a member of the Fermi instrument team. He’s been working to improve the performance of the telescope and actively studying the data it gathers on the gamma-ray sky. His hobbies include metal-working and pyrotechnics.

On June 11, NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope celebrates a decade of using gamma rays, the highest-energy form of light in the cosmos, to study black holes, neutron stars, and other extreme cosmic objects and events. Fermi’s main instrument, the Large Area Telescope (LAT), has observed more than 5,000 individual gamma-ray sources. In 1949, Enrico Fermi — an Italian-American pioneer in high-energy physics and Nobel laureate for whom the mission was named — suggested that cosmic rays, particles traveling at nearly the speed of light, could be propelled by supernova shock waves. In 2013, Fermi’s LAT used gamma rays to prove these stellar remnants are at least one source of the speedy particles. Fermi’s all-sky map, produced by the LAT, has revealed two massive structures extending above and below the plane of the Milky Way. These two 'bubbles' span 50,000 light-years and were probably produced by the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy only a few million years ago. The Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM), Fermi’s secondary instrument, can see the entire sky at any instant, except the portion blocked by Earth. The satellite has observed over 2,300 gamma-ray bursts, the most luminous events in the universe. Gamma-ray bursts occur when massive stars collapse or neutron stars or black holes merge and drive jets of particles at nearly the speed of light. In those jets, matter travels at different speeds and collides, emitting gamma rays. On Aug. 17, 2017, Fermi detected a gamma-ray burst from a powerful explosion in the constellation Hydra. At almost the same time, the National Science Foundation’s Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory detected ripples in space-time from the same event, the merger of two neutron stars. This was the first time light and gravitational waves were detected from the same source. Scientists also used another gamma-ray burst detected by Fermi to confirm Einstein’s theory that space-time is smooth and continuous.

Fermi bubbles are made up of gamma rays, but where they came from is still up for debate. Did they come from a star-forming region, or the black hole at the middle of our galaxy? For special, curated artifacts of this universe, check out https://scishowfinds.com/ Hosted by: Caitlin Hofmeister ---------- Support SciShow by becoming a patron on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/scishow ---------- Dooblydoo thanks go to the following Patreon supporters: Jerry Perez, Lazarus G, Kelly Landrum Jones, Sam Lutfi, Kevin Knupp, Nicholas Smith, D.A. Noe, alexander wadsworth, سلطان الخليفي, Piya Shedden, KatieMarie Magnone, Scott Satovsky Jr, Charles Southerland, Bader AlGhamdi, James Harshaw, Patrick D. Ashmore, Candy, Tim Curwick, charles george, Saul, Mark Terrio-Cameron, Viraansh Bhanushali, Kevin Bealer, Philippe von Bergen, Chris Peters, Justin Lentz ---------- Like SciShow? Want to help support us, and also get things to put on your walls, cover your torso and hold your liquids? Check out our awesome products over at DFTBA Records: http://dftba.com/scishow ---------- Looking for SciShow elsewhere on the internet? Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/scishow Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/scishow Tumblr: http://scishow.tumblr.com Instagram: http://instagram.com/thescishow ---------- Sources: https://arstechnica.com/science/2013/01/star-formation-drives-huge-bubbles-in-the-milky-way/ https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/GLAST/news/new-structure.html https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/03/100303-gamma-ray-fog-fermi-dragons/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/09/highest-energy-cosmic-rays-bounce-off-bubble-irradiate-earth/ http://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-resources/understanding-fermi-bubbles/ http://astronomy.com/news/2017/03/fermi-bubbles http://hubblesite.org/news_release/news/2017-10 Images: https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/12313 https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/GLAST/news/new-structure.html https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/20142 https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/30682 https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/30796

Stream on demand from www.bitesz.com (mobile friendly). *New model links high energy cosmic rays, neutrinos, and gamma rays One of the biggest mysteries in astroparticle physics may have been solved by a new model linking ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays, very high-energy neutrinos, and high-energy gamma rays to supermassive black holes. *Black Hole discovered hiding in globular cluster Astronomers have for the first time discovered an inactive black hole hiding silently in the heart of a globular cluster. *New study could help predict volcanic eruptions Scientists have found a link between volcanic activity and tidal cycles. *February Skywatch We check out Orion, the Pleiades, Sirius and the Magellanic Clouds on February’s Skywatch. *The Science Report The oldest human fossil discovered outside Africa found in an Israeli cave. Using tiny crystals to predict volcanic eruptions. Discovery of a link between vitamin D blood levels and respiratory health. Scientists discover that most female cats are right handed. For enhanced Show Notes including photos to accompany this episode, visit: http://www.bitesz.com/spacetimeshownotes Subscribe, rate and review SpaceTime at all good podcasting apps…including Apple Podcasts (formerly iTunes), audioBoom, Stitcher, PocketCasts, Podbean, Radio Public, Tunein Radio, google play, Spreaker etc RSS feed: https://audioboom.com/channels/4642443.rss Would you prefer to have access to the special commercial free version of SpaceTime? Help support the show, subscribe at Patreon....and share in the rewards. Details at www.patreon.com/spacetimewithstuartgary Help support SpaceTime : The SpaceTime with Stuart Gary merchandise shop. Get your T-Shirts, Coffee Cups, badges, tote bag + more and help support the show. Check out the range: http://www.cafepress.com/spacetime Thank you. Plus: As a part of the SpaceTime family, you can get a free audio book of your choice, plus 30 days free access from audible.com. Just visit www.audibletrial.com/spacetime or click on the banner link at www.spacetimewithstuartgary.com Email: [email protected] Join our mailing list at http://www.bitesz.com/join-our-mailing-list

Scientists are attempting to model some of the most powerful explosions in the universe by miniaturizing them into lab experiments. A team used the intense Gemini laser at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in the UK, with a special setup for studying what’s called an “electron-positron plasma beam,” or EPB. These beams seem to be creating strong, long-lasting magnetic fields. Scientists were able to observe, for the first time, some of the key phenomena that play a major role in the generation of gamma ray bursts, such as the self-generation of magnetic fields that lasted for a long time. In the universe, Gamma Ray Bursts occur with supernovae, or when massive stas explode. They are also caused by black holes. https://gizmodo.com/scientists-create-miniature-gamma-ray-bursts-to-study-b-1822115741 http://www.wochit.com This video was produced by YT Wochit News using http://wochit.com

On Aug. 17, the Gamma-ray Burst Monitor on NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope saw a short burst of gamma rays a smashup of neutron stars, marking the first-ever detection of light from a gravitational wave source. NASA scientists Colleen Wilson-Hodge and Tyson Littenberg explain what happened and what it means for science and discovery.

UC Berkeley theoretical astrophysicist Daniel Kasen describes how the neutron star collision was discovered and what its debris is comprised of. --- Full story: https://www.space.com/38493-gravitational-waves-neutron-star-gold.html Credit: Video by Roxanne Makasdjian and Stephen McNally Music: "Wonder Cycle" by Chris Zabriskie

Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has found a signal at the center of the neighboring Andromeda Galaxy that could indicate the presence of the mysterious stuff known as dark matter. The gamma-ray signal is similar to one seen by Fermi at the center of our own Milky Way galaxy. Gamma rays are the highest-energy form of light, produced by the universe’s most energetic phenomena. They’re common in galaxies like the Milky Way because cosmic rays, particles moving near the speed of light, produce gamma rays when they interact with interstellar gas clouds and starlight. Surprisingly, the latest Fermi data shows the gamma rays in Andromedaalso known as M31are confined to the galaxy’s center instead of spread throughout. To explain this unusual distribution, scientists are proposing that the emission may come from several undetermined sources. One of them could be dark matter, an unknown substance that makes up most of the universe. Subscribe for more Space wonders on ΥουΤυbe: https://tinyurl.com/SpaceTelescopesYouTube

Stream Episodes on demand from www.bitesz.com or www.spacetimewithstuartgary.com (both mobile friendly) *The Milky Way’s mysterious gamma ray glow solved A mysterious gamma-ray glow coming from the centre of the Milky Way is most likely caused by a sea of pulsars. The findings cast doubt on previous ideas that the glow might be evidence of dark matter -- a mysterious invisible substance that accounts for 85 percent of all matter in the universe -- but which has so far evaded detection. *Gravitationally lensed supernova Astronomers have discovered their first gravitationally lensed thermonuclear supernova. The new observations provide new ways of studying the accelerating expansion of the Universe due to a mysterious force called dark energy – as well as gravity and distribution of a mysterious substance called dark matter across the cosmos. *Cassini finds big empty close to Saturn NASA’s Cassini scientists say the region between Saturn and its rings is relatively dust free. However, the discovery made during Cassini’s first plunge inside the rings has come as somewhat of a surprise. *SpaceX launches its first spy satellite SpaceX has successfully launched its first top secret spy satellite for the National Reconnaissance Office. It was a case of second time lucky for the classified payload after a faulty first stage liquid oxygen temperature sensor detected an anomaly the previous day resulting in the launch being scrubbed. The NROL-76 payload was blasted into orbit aboard a Falcon 9 rocket from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Centre at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Base in Florida. The video for the SpaceX launch is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUcNq1PhPQk For Enhanced Show Notes, including photos to accompany this episode: http://www.bitesz.com/spacetime-show-notes Subscribe, rate and review SpaceTime at all good podcasting apps…including iTunes, audioBoom, Stitcher, Pocketcasts, Podbean, Radio Public, Tunein Radio, google play, etc. RSS feed: https://audioboom.com/channels/4642443.rss Help support SpaceTime : The SpaceTime with Stuart Gary merchandise shop. Get your T-Shirts, Coffee Cups, badges, tote bag + more and help support the show. Check out the range: http://www.cafepress.com/spacetime Thank you. Plus: Get a free audio book of your choice, plus 30 days free access from audible.com. Just visit www.audibletrial.com/spacetime or click on the banner link at www.spacetimewithstuartgary.com Email: [email protected] Join our mailing list at http://www.bitesz.com/join-our-mailing-list For more, follow SpaceTime on Facebook, twitter, Tumblr, YouTube, Google+ and Clammr: Facebook: @spacetimewithstuartgary twitter: @stuartgary Tumblr: http://spacetimewithstuartgary.tumblr.com/ Google+: https://plus.google.com/u/2/collection/cabtNB YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhpBkuHSLfIRnliLB12HoC1QE0rwr8qRS Clammr: http://www.clammr.com/app/spacetime If you're enjoying SpaceTime, please help out by sharing and telling your friends. The best recommendation I can get is one from you. Thank you... #astronomy #space #science #technology #news #astrophysics #NASA #cassini

NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has found a signal at the center of the neighboring Andromeda galaxy that could indicate the presence of the mysterious stuff known as dark matter. The gamma-ray signal is similar to one seen by Fermi at the center of our own Milky Way galaxy. Gamma rays are the highest-energy form of light, produced by the universe's most energetic phenomena. They're common in galaxies like the Milky Way because cosmic rays, particles moving near the speed of light, produce gamma rays when they interact with interstellar gas clouds and starlight. Surprisingly, the latest Fermi data shows the gamma rays in Andromeda, also known as M31, are confined to the galaxy's center instead of spread throughout. To explain this unusual distribution, scientists are proposing that the emission may come from several undetermined sources. One of them could be dark matter, an unknown substance that makes up most of the universe. NASA's Fermi telescope has detected a gamma-ray excess at the center of the Andromeda galaxy that's similar to a signature Fermi previously detected at the center of our own Milky Way. Watch to learn more. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Scott Wiessinger Music: "Lost Time" from Killer Tracks For more information: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/nasas-fermi-finds-possible-dark-matter-ties-in-andromeda-galaxy This video is public domain and along with other supporting visualizations can be downloaded from the Scientific Visualization Studio at: http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/12505 If you liked this video, subscribe to the NASA Goddard YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/NASAExplorer Or subscribe to NASA’s Goddard Shorts HD Podcast: http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/iTunes/f0004_index.html Follow NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center · Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/NASA.GSFC · Twitter http://twitter.com/NASAGoddard · Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc/ · Instagram http://www.instagram.com/nasagoddard/ · Google+ http://plus.google.com/+NASAGoddard/posts

NASA’s Juno spacecraft made its latest close flyby of Jupiter Feb. 2 -- passing about 2,700 miles above the planet’s clouds. This was the fourth close flyby since Juno began orbiting Jupiter last year on July 4. During these close passes instruments on the spacecraft probe beneath the cloud cover to collect scientific data about the planet's structure, atmosphere and magnetosphere. This information could help us better understand the planetary systems being discovered around other stars. Also, Cassini Sees Saturn’s Rings in Greater Detail, The Most Extreme Blazars, NASA at Super Bowl Event, NASA at NBA Black Heritage Celebration, and Day of Remembrance!

Gamma-ray bursts are some of the most powerful explosions in the Universe.

NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has identified the farthest gamma-ray blazars, a type of galaxy whose intense emissions are powered by supersized black holes. Light from the most distant object began its journey to us when the universe was 1.4 billion years old, or nearly 10 percent of its present age. Despite their youth, these far-flung blazars host some of the most massive black holes known. That they developed so early in cosmic history challenges current ideas of how supermassive black holes form and grow. Blazars constitute roughly half of the gamma-ray sources detected by Fermis Large Area Telescope (LAT). Astronomers think their high-energy emissions are powered by matter heated and torn apart as it falls from a storage, or accretion, disk toward a supermassive black hole with a million or more times the sun’s mass. A small part of this infalling material becomes redirected into a pair of particle jets, which blast outward in opposite directions at nearly the speed of light. Blazars appear bright in all forms of light, including gamma rays, the highest-energy light, when one of the jets happens to point almost directly toward us. Previously, the most distant blazars detected by Fermi emitted their light when the universe was about 2.1 billion years old. Earlier observations showed that the most distant blazars produce most of their light at energies right in between the range detected by the LAT and current X-ray satellites, which made finding them extremely difficult. Then, in 2015, the Fermi team released a full reprocessing of all LAT data, called Pass 8, that ushered in so many improvements astronomers said it was like having a brand new instrument. The LATs boosted sensitivity at lower energies increased the chances of discovering more far-off blazars. Two of the blazars boast black holes of a billion solar masses or more. All of the objects possess extremely luminous accretion disks that emit more than two trillion times the energy output of our sun. This means matter is continuously falling inward, corralled into a disk and heated before making the final plunge to the black hole. NASAs Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has discovered the five most distant gamma-ray blazars yet known. The light detected by Fermi left these galaxies by the time the universe was two billion years old. Two of these galaxies harbor billion-solar-mass black holes that challenge current ideas about how quickly such monsters could grow. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Scott Wiessinger Read more: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/nasas-fermi-discovers-the-most-extreme-blazars-yet This video is public domain and along with other supporting visualizations can be downloaded from the Scientific Visualization Studio at: http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/12454 If you liked this video, subscribe to the NASA Goddard YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/NASAExplorer Or subscribe to NASA’s Goddard Shorts HD Podcast: http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/iTunes/f0004_index.html Follow NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center · Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/NASA.GSFC · Twitter http://twitter.com/NASAGoddard · Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc/ · Instagram http://www.instagram.com/nasagoddard/ · Google+ http://plus.google.com/+NASAGoddard/posts

An international science team says NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has observed high-energy light from solar eruptions located on the far side of the sun, which should block direct light from these events. This apparent paradox is providing solar scientists with a unique tool for exploring how charged particles are accelerated to nearly the speed of light and move across the sun during solar flares. Fermi has seen gamma rays from the Earth-facing side of the sun, but the emission is produced by streams of particles blasted out of solar flares on the far side These particles must travel some 300,000 miles within about five minutes of the eruption to produce this light. Fermi has doubled the number of these rare events, called behind-the-limb flares, since it began scanning the sky in 2008. Its Large Area Telescope (LAT) has captured gamma rays with energies reaching 3 billion electron volts, some 30 times greater than the most energetic light previously associated with these "hidden" flares. Thanks to NASAs Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) spacecraft, which were monitoring the solar far side when the eruptions occurred, the Fermi events mark the first time scientists have direct imaging of beyond-the-limb solar flares associated with high-energy gamma rays. The hidden flares occurred Oct. 11, 2013, and Jan. 6 and Sept. 1, 2014. All three events were associated with fast coronal mass ejections (CMEs), where billion-ton clouds of solar plasma were launched into space. The CME from the most recent event was moving at nearly 5 million miles an hour as it left the sun. Researchers suspect particles accelerated at the leading edge of the CMEs were responsible for the gamma-ray emission. Large magnetic field structures can connect the acceleration site with distant part of the solar surface. Because charged particles must remain attached to magnetic field lines, the research team thinks particles accelerated as the CME traveled to the sun’s visible side along magnetic field lines connecting both locations. As the particles impacted the surface, they generated gamma-ray emission through a variety of processes. One prominent mechanism is thought to be proton collisions that result in a particle called a pion, which quickly decays into gamma rays. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Scott Wiessenger Music: "Jupiters Eye" from Killer Tracks Read more: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/nasas-fermi-sees-gamma-rays-from-hidden-solar-flares/ This video is public domain and along with other supporting visualizations can be downloaded from the Scientific Visualization Studio at: http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/12451 If you liked this video, subscribe to the NASA Goddard YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/NASAExplorer Or subscribe to NASA’s Goddard Shorts HD Podcast: http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/iTunes/f0004_index.html Follow NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center · Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/NASA.GSFC · Twitter http://twitter.com/NASAGoddard · Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc/ · Instagram http://www.instagram.com/nasagoddard/ · Google+ http://plus.google.com/+NASAGoddard/posts

Download all visuals here: http://bit.ly/2g1EQlo A search for binary stars that emit gamma-rays using NASA’s Fermi satellite turned up a luminous object in another galaxy. These objects are characteristically variable. Using additional telescopes including the SWIFT X-Ray telescope and numerous ground based telescopes the team investigated the intriguing source known as LMC P3. One star in the system is tremendously hot (60,000 degrees F or 33,000 degrees C)! There are tremendous particle winds and also electron winds that produce the varying radiation observed. Join Tony Darnell and Carol Christian as they discuss with Robin Corbet and Joel Coley (University of Maryland and Goddard Space Flight Center) along with Malcolm Coe (U of Southhampton) and Laura Chomiuk (Michigan State) their ideas for this investigation, how they found the object and what the observations from multiple observatories tells them about this exotic object. Follow DeepAstronomy on Twitter: @DeepAstronomy Like DeepAstronomy on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DeepAstronomy/ Like Space Fan News on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SpaceFanNews/ Follow DeepAstronomy on Google+ http://google.com/+DeepAstronomy http://google.com/+TonyDarnell We also have a great Google+ Community, come share your thoughts and join the discussion! https://plus.google.com/communities/109849939648748938781

Use the URL: http://www.squarespace.com/nutshell for 10% with a new website and support this channel. Also make your life easier. Thanks a lot to Squarespace for supporting the show! There are cosmic snipers firing at random into the unvierse. What are they and what happens if they hit us? Support us on Patreon so we can make more stuff (and get cool stuff in return): https://www.patreon.com/Kurzgesagt?ty=h Kurzgesagt merch here: http://bit.ly/1P1hQIH Get the music of the video here: soundcloud: http://bit.ly/2aPCCjH bandcamp: http://bit.ly/2amauGP http://www.epic-mountain.com THANKS A LOT TO OUR LOVELY PATRONS FOR SUPPORTING US: John Wendeborn, Mia Butorac, Wesley Byrd, Richard Judd, Max Bowers, Mitchell Greenaway, Albinomaur, Harry, Erik, Onnen, Connor, Woodard, BurmansHealthShop, Output Coupler, William Hector, Wes, Quantum Cat, Kyle Fox, Leo Caillard, Alex Tudorica, Nicholas Peterson, Haden Wasserbaech, Robert Martin, Brian David Henderson, Justin Rimando, JMW, MartinHanzlík, Veritasium, Oli Boersma, Fredrik Sundqvist, Brayden Hull, Dwight VanTuyl, Karl Ostmo, Annemarie Landman, Alfonso Cornejo, James Cochran, Paul Craig, Syed Rafay Mahmood, Justin Ritchie, Victor Hilario, David Humphreys, Brian, Nicholas Bethencourt, Nate Guest, Razvan Caliman, Steven Arcangeli, Ryan Poole, Samantha Adikari, Skid Vis, Muhammad Ragab, Kasper Eriksen, Connor Findlay, Matt Tavani, Thomas Leese, Daniel Podobinski, Corey Hinds, Milosz, Jeroen Klapwijk, Nicole Kalagayan, Dan Longauer, Dennis, Lorenzo89er, Charles Shuller, Dana Levinthal, Adam Thompson-Sharpe, shahad sadeq, Jenny Ng, Leo Herzog, Charles Macdonald, Jill Hoffman, Bluesparks, ethnicolor, Jacob Venable, Andrei-Gabriel, Michal Ciechomski, Wisecrack, Brett Smithson Death From Space — Gamma-Ray Bursts Explained Help us caption & translate this video! http://www.youtube.com/timedtext_cs_panel?c=UCsXVk37bltHxD1rDPwtNM8Q&tab=2

On Sept. 14, waves of energy traveling for more than a billion years gently rattled space-time in the vicinity of Earth. The disturbance, produced by a pair of merging black holes, was captured by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) facilities in Hanford, Washington, and Livingston, Louisiana. This event marked the first-ever detection of gravitational waves and opens a new scientific window on how the universe works. Less than half a second later, the Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM) on NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope picked up a brief, weak burst of high-energy light consistent with the same part of the sky. Analysis of this burst suggests just a 0.2-percent chance of simply being random coincidence. Gamma-rays arising from a black hole merger would be a landmark finding because black holes are expected to merge 'cleanly', without producing any sort of light. Detecting light from a gravitational wave source will enable a much deeper understanding of the event. With its wide energy range and large field of view, the GBM is the premier instrument for detecting light from short gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), which last less than two seconds. They are widely thought to occur when orbiting compact objects, like neutron stars and black holes, spiral inward and crash together. These same systems also are suspected to be prime producers of gravitational waves. Currently, gravitational wave observatories possess relatively blurry vision. For the September event, dubbed GW150914 after the date, LIGO scientists could only trace the source to an arc of sky spanning an area of about 600 square degrees, comparable to the angular area on Earth occupied by the United States. Assuming the GBM burst is connected to this event, the GBM localization and Fermi's view of Earth combine to reduce the LIGO search area by about two-thirds, to 200 square degrees. With a burst better placed for the GBM’s detectors, or one bright enough to be seen by Fermi’s Large Area Telescope, even greater improvements are possible. Black hole mergers were not expected to emit significant X-ray or gamma-ray signals because orbiting gas is needed to generate light. Theorists expected any gas around binary black holes would have been swept up long before their final plunge. For this reason, some astronomers view the GBM burst as most likely a coincidence and unrelated to GW150914. Others have developed alternative scenarios where merging black holes could create observable gamma-ray emission. It will take further detections to clarify what really happens when black holes collide.

Video version of a public, kiosk-style looping presentation about the NASA Fermi Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope. This presentation begins with information about gamma-rays, their extreme energy at the high end of the electromagnetic spectrum and various sources of gamma-rays—both within our galaxy and in the cosmos at large. The presentation provides a brief history of gamma-ray research, culminating in the development, technology and launch of the Fermi spacecraft in June 2008. The second half of the presentation is devoted to the research results of Fermi after seven years in orbit. Because this presentation was designed to play on a 70-inch HD TV monitor that is mounted on a hallway wall in Stanford University's Physics/Astrophysics building, it has no audio.

Major improvements to methods used to process observations from NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope have yielded an expanded, higher-quality set of data that allows astronomers to produce the most detailed census of the sky yet made at extreme energies. A new sky map reveals hundreds of these sources, including 12 that produce gamma rays with energies exceeding a trillion times the energy of visible light. The survey also discovered four dozen new sources that remain undetected at any other wavelength. By carefully reexamining every gamma-ray and particle detection by the LAT since Fermi's 2008 launch, scientists improved their knowledge of the detector's response to each event and to the background environment in which it was measured. This enabled the Fermi team to find many gamma rays that previously had been missed while simultaneously improving the LAT's ability to determine the directions of incoming gamma rays. The improved data, known as Pass 8, effectively sharpens the LAT's view while also significantly widening its useful energy range. Using 61,000 Pass 8 gamma rays collected over 80 months, Marco Ajello and his colleagues constructed a map of the entire sky at energies ranging from 50 billion (GeV) to 2 trillion electron volts (TeV). For comparison, the energy of visible light ranges from about 2 to 3 electron volts. The Fermi team catalogued 360 individual gamma-ray sources, about 75 percent of which are blazars -- distant galaxies sporting jets powered by supermassive black holes. The highest-energy sources, which are all located within our galaxy, are mostly the remnants of supernova explosions and pulsar wind nebulae, places where rapidly rotating neutron stars accelerate particles to near the speed of light. A famous example, the Crab Nebula, tops the list of the highest-energy Fermi sources, producing a steady drizzle of gamma rays exceeding 1 TeV. Astronomers think these very high-energy gamma rays are produced when lower-energy light collides with accelerated particles. This results in a small energy loss for the particle and a big gain for the light, transforming it into a gamma ray. For the first time, Fermi data now extend to energies previously seen only by ground-based detectors. Because ground-based telescopes have much smaller fields of view than the LAT, which scans the whole sky every three hours, they have detected only about a quarter of the objects in the new catalog. This study provides ground facilities with more than 280 new targets for follow-up observations. Credits Scott Wiessinger (USRA): Lead Producer Francis Reddy (Syneren Technologies): Lead Science Writer Chris Smith: Producer Walt Feimer (HTSI): Animator Scott Wiessinger (USRA): Animator Rob Andreoli (AIMM): Videographer John Caldwell (AIMM): Videographer Chris Smith: Videographer Scott Wiessinger (USRA): Lead Editor Julie McEnery (NASA/GSFC): Interviewee Philippe Bruel (LLR): Interviewee Matthew Wood (SLAC): Interviewee Please give credit for this item to: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. However, individual items should be credited as indicated above.

This video, constructed from more than six years of observations by NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, is the first to show how the entire sky appears at energies between 50 billion (GeV) and 2 trillion electron volts (TeV). A diffuse glow fills the sky and is brightest in the middle of the map, along the central plane of our galaxy. The famous Fermi Bubbles, first detected in 2010, appear as red extensions north and south of the galactic center and are much more pronounced at these energies. Discrete gamma-ray sources include pulsar wind nebulae and supernova remnants within our galaxy, as well as distant galaxies called blazars powered by supermassive black holes. Labels show the highest-energy sources, all located within our galaxy and emitting gamma rays exceeding 1 TeV. Major improvements to methods used to process observations from NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope have yielded an expanded, higher-quality set of data that allows astronomers to produce the most detailed census of the sky yet made at extreme energies. This new sky map reveals hundreds of these sources, including 12 that produce gamma rays with energies exceeding a trillion times the energy of visible light. The survey also discovered four dozen new sources that remain undetected at any other wavelength. The improved data, known as Pass 8, effectively sharpens the Large Area Telescope's (LAT) view while also significantly widening its useful energy range. Using 61,000 Pass 8 gamma rays collected over 80 months, Marco Ajello and his colleagues constructed a map of the entire sky at energies ranging from 50 billion (GeV) to 2 trillion electron volts (TeV). For comparison, the energy of visible light ranges from about 2 to 3 electron volts. The Fermi team cataloged 360 individual gamma-ray sources, about 75 percent of which are blazars -- distant galaxies sporting jets powered by supermassive black holes. The highest-energy sources, which are all located within our galaxy, are mostly the remnants of supernova explosions and pulsar wind nebulae, places where rapidly rotating neutron stars accelerate particles to near the speed of light. A famous example, the Crab Nebula, tops the list of the highest-energy Fermi sources, producing a steady drizzle of gamma rays exceeding 1 TeV. Astronomers think these very high-energy gamma rays are produced when lower-energy light collides with accelerated particles. This results in a small energy loss for the particle and a big gain for the light, transforming it into a gamma ray. For the first time, Fermi data now extend to energies previously seen only by ground-based detectors. Because ground-based telescopes have much smaller fields of view than the LAT, which scans the whole sky every three hours, they have detected only about a quarter of the objects in the new catalog. This study provides ground facilities with more than 280 new targets for follow-up observations.

Major improvements to methods used to process observations from NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope have yielded an expanded, higher-quality set of data that allows astronomers to produce the most detailed census of the sky yet made at extreme energies. By carefully reexamining every gamma-ray and particle detection by the Large Area Telescope (LAT) since Fermi's 2008 launch, scientists improved their knowledge of the detector's response to each event and to the background environment in which it was measured. This enabled the Fermi team to find many gamma rays that previously had been missed while simultaneously improving the LAT's ability to determine the directions of incoming gamma rays. The improved data, known as Pass 8, effectively sharpens the LAT's view while also significantly widening its useful energy range. For the first time, Fermi data now extend to energies previously seen only by ground-based detectors. Because ground-based telescopes have much smaller fields of view than the LAT, which scans the whole sky every three hours, they have detected only about a quarter of the objects in the new catalog. Read more: http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/nasas-fermi-space-telescope-sharpens-its-high-energy-vision This video is public domain and can be downloaded at: https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/details.cgi?aid=12019

A long time ago in a galaxy half the universe away, a flood of high-energy gamma rays began its journey to Earth. When they arrived in April, NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope caught the outburst, which helped two ground-based gamma-ray observatories detect some of the highest-energy light ever seen from a galaxy so distant. Astronomers had assumed that light at different energies came from regions at different distances from the black hole. Gamma rays, the highest-energy form of light, were thought to be produced closest in. But observations across the spectrum suggest that light at all wavelengths came from a single region located far away roughly five light-years from the black hole, which is greater than the distance between our sun and the nearest star. The gamma rays came from a galaxy known as PKS 1441+25, a type of active galaxy called a blazar. Located toward the constellation Boötes, the galaxy is so far away its light takes 7.6 billion years to reach us. At its heart lies a monster black hole with a mass estimated at 70 million times the sun's and a surrounding disk of hot gas and dust. If placed at the center of our solar system, the black hole's event horizon -- the point beyond which nothing can escape -- would extend almost to the orbit of Mars. As material in the disk falls toward the black hole, some of it forms dual particle jets that blast out of the disk in opposite directions at nearly the speed of light. Blazars are so bright in gamma rays because one jet points almost directly toward us, giving astronomers a view straight into the black hole's dynamic and poorly understood realm. In April, PKS 1441+25 underwent a major eruption. Luigi Pacciani at the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics in Rome was leading a project to catch blazar flares in their earliest stages in collaboration with the Major Atmospheric Gamma-ray Imaging Cerenkov experiment (MAGIC), located on La Palma in the Canary Islands. Using public Fermi data, Pacciani discovered the outburst and immediately alerted the astronomical community. Fermi's Large Area Telescope revealed gamma rays up to 33 billion electron volts (GeV), reaching into the highest-energy part of the instrument's detection range. For comparison, visible light has energies between about 2 and 3 electron volts. Following up on the Fermi alert, the MAGIC team turned to the blazar and detected gamma rays with energies ranging from 40 to 250 GeV. Because this galaxy is so far away, we didn't have a strong expectation of detecting gamma rays with energies this high. That’s because distance matters for very high-energy gamma rays -- they convert into particles when they collide with lower-energy light. The visible and ultraviolet light from stars shining throughout the history of the universe forms a remnant glow called the extragalactic background light (EBL). For gamma rays, this is a cosmic gauntlet they must pass through to be detected at Earth. When a gamma ray encounters starlight, it transforms into an electron and a positron and is lost to astronomers. The farther away the blazar is, the less likely its highest-energy gamma rays will survive to be detected. Following the MAGIC discovery, VERITAS also detected gamma rays with energies approaching 200 GeV. PKS 1441+25 is one of only two such distant sources for which gamma rays with energies above 100 GeV have been observed. Its dramatic flare provides a powerful glimpse into the intensity of the EBL from near-infrared to near-ultraviolet wavelengths and suggests that galaxy surveys have identified most of the sources responsible for it. Read more: http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/nasas-fermi-satellite-kicks-off-a-blazar-detecting-bonanza This video is public domain and can be downloaded at: http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/goto?12004 Like our videos? Subscribe to NASA's Goddard Shorts HD podcast: http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/iTunes/f0004_index.html Or find NASA Goddard Space Flight Center on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/NASA.GSFC Or find us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/NASAGoddard

Fermi finds the first extragalactic gamma-ray pulsar Researchers using NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope have discovered the first gamma-ray pulsar in a galaxy other than our own. The object sets a new record for the most luminous gamma-ray pulsar known. The pulsar lies in the outskirts of the Tarantula Nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small galaxy that orbits our Milky Way and is located 163,000 light-years away. The Tarantula Nebula is the largest, most active and most complex star-formation region in our galactic neighborhood. It was identified as a bright source of gamma rays, the highest-energy form of light, early in the Fermi mission. Astronomers initially attributed this glow to collisions of subatomic particles accelerated in the shock waves produced by supernova . However, the discovery of gamma-ray pulses from a previously known pulsar named PSR J0540-6919 shows that it is responsible for roughly half of the gamma-ray brightness previously thought to come from the nebula. Gamma-ray pulses from J0540-6919 have 20 times the intensity of the previous record-holder, the pulsar in the famous Crab Nebula. Yet they have roughly similar levels of radio, optical and X-ray emission. Accounting for these differences will guide astronomers to a better understanding of the extreme physics at work in young pulsars. visual: http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/details.cgi?aid=12003 Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Credits Scott Wiessinger (USRA): Narrator Francis Reddy (Syneren Technologies): Science Writer Scott Wiessinger (USRA): Writer Scott Wiessinger (USRA): Lead Producer Scott Wiessinger (USRA): Animator Please give credit for this item to: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. However, individual items should be credited as indicated above. music: Space Walk by Silent Partner https://www.youtube.com/audiolibrary/music

Gamma-ray bursts are not only incredible to study, but their discovery has an epic story all its own. Today Phil takes you through some Cold War history and then dives into what we know. Bursts come in two rough varieties: Long and short. Long ones are from hypernovae, massive stars exploding, sending out twin beams of matter and energy. Short ones are from merging neutron stars. Both kinds are so energetic they are visible for billions of light years, and both are also the birth announcements of black holes. Crash Course Astronomy Poster: http://store.dftba.com/products/crashcourse-astronomy-poster -- Table of Contents Gamma-Ray Were Discovered During the Cold War 0:47 Bursts Come in Two Varieties: Long and Short 8:35 Long Bursts Are From Hypernovae, Massive Stars Exploding 6:46 Short Ones Are From Merging Neutron Stars 9:00 Both Are The Birthplace of Black holes 9:55 -- PBS Digital Studios: http://youtube.com/pbsdigitalstudios Follow Phil on Twitter: https://twitter.com/badastronomer Want to find Crash Course elsewhere on the internet? Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/YouTubeCrashCourse Twitter - http://www.twitter.com/TheCrashCourse Tumblr - http://thecrashcourse.tumblr.com Support CrashCourse on Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/crashcourse -- PHOTOS/VIDEOS Nuclear Bomb Images via Wikimedia Commons: Operation Upshot Knothole https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Operation_Upshot-Knothole_-_Badger_001.jpg Ivy Mike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IvyMike2.jpg Castle Bravo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Bravo#/media/File:Castle_Bravo_Blast.jpg Upshot Knothole GRABLE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Upshot-Knothole_GRABLE.jpg President Kennedy signs the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partial_Nuclear_Test_Ban_Treaty#/media/File:President_Kennedy_signs_Nuclear_Test_Ban_Treaty,_07_October_1963.jpg [credit: Wikimedia Commons] Vela http://www.losangeles.af.mil/shared/media/photodb/photos/2013/06/130605-F-IN001-011.jpg [credit: USAF] The Crab Nebula https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_1604.html [credit: NASA, ESA, J. Hester, A. Loll (ASU)] Solar Flare http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/news/News041612-M1.7flare.html [credit: NASA/SDO/AIA] Gamma Ray Burst http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/details.cgi?aid=20139 [credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab] Four ALMA antennas on the Chajnantor plain http://www.eso.org/public/images/alma-jfs-2010-10/ [credit: ESO/José Francisco Salgado (josefrancisco.org)] Gamma Ray Burst 970228 https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/opo9730b/ [credit: Andrew Fruchter (STScI), Elena Pian (ITSRE-CNR), and NASA/ESA] HST/STIS Image of the optical afterglow of w:GRB 970508 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GRB_970508#/media/File:StisI.gif [credit: STScI/NASA] Black Holes: Monsters in Space http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/nustar/multimedia/pia16695.html [credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech] Naked-Eye Gamma-ray Burst Model for GRB 080319B http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/details.cgi?aid=10369 [credit: NASA/Swift/Cruz deWilde] 2008 GRB http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/218810main_grb_20080320_HI.jpg [credit: NASA/Swift/Stefan Immler, et al.] GRB Data http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/134782main_GRB_data_compare_black_sm.jpg [credit: NASA] Imagine two massive stars born together as a binary star http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2005/j0806/wd_lg.mpg [credit: NASA/GSFC/D. Berry] Colliding Binary Neutron stars http://chandra.harvard.edu/resources/animations/neutronstars.html?page=4 [credit: NASA/D.Berry] Black Hole Devours a Neutron Star http://chandra.harvard.edu/resources/animations/neutronstars.html?page=5 [credit: NASA/D.Berry] Eta Carinae https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eta_Carinae#/media/File:Eta_Carinae.jpg [credit: Jon Morse (University of Colorado) & NASA Hubble Space Telescope] WR 104: A Pinwheel Star System http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap140603.html [credit: P. Tuthill (U. Sydney) & J. Monnier (U. Michigan), Keck Obs., ARC, NSF] Swift HD Beauty Shot http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/details.cgi?aid=10867 [credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center] Swift's 500 Gamma-ray Bursts http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/details.cgi?aid=10590 [credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center]

Researchers using NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope have discovered the first gamma-ray pulsar in a galaxy other than our own. The object sets a new record for the most luminous gamma-ray pulsar known. The pulsar lies in the outskirts of the Tarantula Nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small galaxy that orbits our Milky Way and is located 163,000 light-years away. The Tarantula Nebula is the largest, most active and most complex star-formation region in our galactic neighborhood. It was identified as a bright source of gamma rays, the highest-energy form of light, early in the Fermi mission. Astronomers initially attributed this glow to collisions of subatomic particles accelerated in the shock waves produced by supernova . However, the discovery of gamma-ray pulses from a previously known pulsar named PSR J0540-6919 shows that it is responsible for roughly half of the gamma-ray brightness previously thought to come from the nebula. Gamma-ray pulses from J0540-6919 have 20 times the intensity of the previous record-holder, the pulsar in the famous Crab Nebula. Yet they have roughly similar levels of radio, optical and X-ray emission. Accounting for these differences will guide astronomers to a better understanding of the extreme physics at work in young pulsars. Read more at http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/nasas-fermi-satellite-detects-first-gamma-ray-pulsar-in-another-galaxy This video is public domain and can be downloaded at: http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/details.cgi?aid=12003 Like our videos? Subscribe to NASA's Goddard Shorts HD podcast: http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/iTunes/f0004_index.html Or find NASA Goddard Space Flight Center on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/NASA.GSFC Or find us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/NASAGoddard

The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope (FGST]), formerly called the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST), is a space observatory being used to perform gamma-ray astronomy observations from low Earth orbit. Its main instrument is the Large Area Telescope (LAT), with which astronomers mostly intend to perform an all-sky survey studying astrophysical and cosmological phenomena such as active galactic nuclei, pulsars, other high-energy sources and dark matter. Another instrument aboard Fermi, the Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM; formerly GLAST Burst Monitor), is being used to study gamma-ray bursts. Fermi was launched on 11 June 2008 at 16:05 UTC aboard a Delta II 7920-H rocket. The mission is a joint venture of NASA, the United States Department of Energy, and government agencies in France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and Sweden. Fermi includes two scientific instruments, the Large Area Telescope (LAT) and the Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM). The LAT is an imaging gamma-ray detector (a pair-conversion instrument) which detects photons with energy from about 20 million to about 300 billion electron volts (20 MeV to 300 GeV), with a field of view of about 20% of the sky; it may be thought of as a sequel to the EGRET instrument on the Compton gamma ray observatory. The GBM consists of 14 scintillation detectors (twelve sodium iodide crystals for the 8 keV to 1 MeV range and two bismuth germanate crystals with sensitivity from 150 keV to 30 MeV), and can detect gamma-ray bursts in that energy range across the whole of the sky not occluded by the Earth. General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems (formerly Spectrum Astro and now Orbital Sciences) in Gilbert, Arizona designed and built the spacecraft that carries the instruments. It travels in a low, circular orbit with a period of about 95 minutes. Its normal mode of operation maintains its orientation so that the instruments will look away from the Earth, with a "rocking" motion to equalize the coverage of the sky. The view of the instruments will sweep out across most of the sky about 16 times per day. The spacecraft can also maintain an orientation that points to a chosen target. Both science instruments underwent environmental testing, including vibration, vacuum, and high and low temperatures to ensure that they can withstand the stresses of launch and continue to operate in space. They were integrated with the spacecraft at the General Dynamics ASCENT facility in Gilbert, Arizona. Data from the instruments are available to the public through the Fermi Science Support Center web site. Software for analyzing the data is also available. Fermi gained its new name in 2008: On 26 August 2008, GLAST was renamed the "Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope" in honor of Enrico Fermi, a pioneer in high-energy physics. NASA's Alan Stern, associate administrator for Science at NASA Headquarters, launched a public competition 7 February 2008, closing 31 March 2008, to rename GLAST in a way that would "capture the excitement of GLAST's mission and call attention to gamma-ray and high-energy astronomy ... something memorable to commemorate this spectacular new astronomy mission ... a name that is catchy, easy to say and will help make the satellite and its mission a topic of dinner table and classroom discussion". CC License @ NASA

The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope is a NASA observatory designed to reveal the high-energy universe in never-before-seen detail. With Fermi, astronomers have a unique tool to explore high-energy processes associated with solar flares, spinning neutron stars, outbursts from black holes, exploding stars, supernova remnants and energetic particles to gain insight into how the universe works. Fermi detects gamma rays, the most powerful form of light. How powerful? The energy of visible light falls between 2 and 3 electron volts, but the gamma rays detected by Fermi have energies several thousand to billions of times greater. This video is public domain and can be downloaded at: http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/goto?10861 credit : NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Subscribe for more Space wonders on ΥουΤυbe: https://tinyurl.com/SpaceTelescopesYouTube

This animation zooms into an image of the Milky Way, shown in visible light, and superimposes a gamma-ray map of the galactic center from NASA's Fermi. Raw data transitions to a view with all known sources removed, revealing a gamma-ray excess hinting at the presence of dark matter. Credit: NASA Goddard/A. Mellinger (Central Michigan Univ.) and T. Linden (Univ. of Chicago) Read the related story: http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/fermi-data-tantalize-with-new-clues-to-dark-matter/ This video is public domain and can be downloaded at: http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/goto?11513

NASA ANNIVERSARY: June 11, 2008-Launch of GLAST/Fermi Gamma Ray Space Telescope - HQ. @NASAhistory. On June 11, 2008, NASA launched the space observatory from Cape Canaveral known then as the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope or GLAST. Renamed the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope two months later after Italian physicist Enrico Fermi, NASA's largest gamma-ray observatory has enabled scientists to learn more about the ever-changing Universe, answer persistent questions about super-massive black-hole systems, pulsars and cosmic rays, and search for signals of new physics in the cosmos.

For more information, visit http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/nasas-fermi-celebrates-five-years-in-space-enters-extended-mission/ This compilation summarizes the wide range of science from the first five years of NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. Fermi is a NASA observatory designed to reveal the high-energy universe in never-before-seen detail. Launched in 2008, Fermi continues to give astronomers a unique tool for exploring high-energy processes associated with solar flares, spinning neutron stars, outbursts from black holes, exploding stars, supernova remnants and energetic particles to gain insight into how the universe works. Fermi detects gamma rays, the most powerful form of light, with energies thousands to billions of times greater than the visible spectrum. The mission has discovered pulsars, proved that supernova remnants can accelerate particles to near the speed of light, monitored eruptions of black holes in distant galaxies, and found giant bubbles linked to the central black hole in our own galaxy. From blazars to thunderstorms, from dark matter to supernova remnants, catch the highlights of NASA Fermi's first five years in space. View the complete videos plus all the other Fermi related media from the last 5 years in the Fermi Five Year gallery: http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov//Gallery/Fermi5.html For more information about Fermi, visit the NASA webpage: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/GLAST/main/index.html This video is public domain and can be downloaded at: http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov//vis/a010000/a011300/a011311/index.html Like our videos? Subscribe to NASA's Goddard Shorts HD podcast: http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/iTunes/f0004_index.html Or find NASA Goddard Space Flight Center on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/NASA.GSFC Or find us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/NASAGoddard

Three hundred and fifty miles overhead, the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope silently glides through space. From this serene vantage point, the satellite's instruments watch the fiercest processes in the universe unfold. Pulsars spin up to 700 times a second, sweeping powerful beams of gamma-ray light through the cosmos. The hyperactive cores of distant galaxies spew bright jets of plasma. Far beyond, something mysterious explodes with unfathomable power, sending energy waves crashing through the universe. Stanford professor and KIPAC member Roger W. Romani talks about this orbiting telescope, the most advanced ever to view the sky in gamma rays, a form of light at the highest end of the energy spectrum that's created in the hottest regions of the universe. For more information, visit: http://fgst.slac.stanford.edu/

Lightning in the clouds is directly linked to events that produce some of the highest-energy light naturally made on Earth: terrestrial gamma-ray flashes (TGFs). An instrument aboard NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope was recently fine-tuned to better catch TGFs, and this allowed scientists to discover that TGFs emit radio waves, too.

During a powerful solar blast in March, NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope detected the highest-energy light ever associated with an eruption on the sun. The discovery heralds Fermi's new role as a solar observatory, a powerful new tool for understanding solar outbursts during the sun's maximum period of activity.

Fermi’s Large Area Telescope (LAT) is the spacecraft’s main scientific instrument. This animation shows a gamma ray (purple) entering the LAT, where it is converted into an electron (red) and a positron (blue). The paths of the particles point back to the gamma-ray source. The LAT maps the whole sky every three hours. (Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab)

No one knows what dark matter is, but it constitutes 80 percent of the matter in our universe. By studying numerous dwarf galaxies -- satellite systems that orbit our own Milky Way galaxy -- NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has produced some of the strongest limits yet on the nature of the hypothetical particles suspected of making up dark matter.

Active galaxies called blazars make up the largest class of objects detected by Fermi's Large Area Telescope (LAT). Massive black holes in the hearts of these galaxies fire particle jets in our direction. Fermi team member Elizabeth Hays narrates this quick tour of blazars, which includes LAT movies showing how rapidly their emissions can change. Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

NASA scientists don't often learn that their spacecraft is at risk of crashing into another satellite. But when Julie McEnery, the project scientist for NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, checked her email on March 29, 2012, she found herself facing this precise situation. While Fermi is in fine shape today, continuing its mission to map the highest-energy light in the universe, the story of how it sidestepped a potential disaster offers a glimpse at an underappreciated aspect of managing a space mission: orbital traffic control. As McEnery worked through her inbox, an automatically generated report arrived from NASA's Robotic Conjunction Assessment Risk Analysis (CARA) team based at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. On scanning the document, she discovered that Fermi was just one week away from an unusually close encounter with Cosmos 1805, a dead Cold-War era spy satellite. The two objects, speeding around Earth at thousands of miles an hour in nearly perpendicular orbits, were expected to miss each other by a mere 700 feet. Although the forecast indicated a close call, satellite operators have learned the hard way that they can't be too careful. The uncertainties in predicting spacecraft positions a week into the future can be much larger than the distances forecast for their closest approach. With a speed relative to Fermi of 27,000 mph, a direct hit by the 3,100-pound Cosmos 1805 would release as much energy as two and a half tons of high explosives, destroying both spacecraft. The update on Friday, March 30, indicated that the satellites would occupy the same point in space within 30 milliseconds of each other. Fermi would have to move out of the way if the threat failed to recede. Because Fermi's thrusters were designed to de-orbit the satellite at the end of its mission, they had never before been used or tested, adding a new source of anxiety for the team. By Tuesday, April 3, the close approach was certain, and all plans were in place for firing Fermi's thrusters. Shortly after noon EDT, the spacecraft stopped scanning the sky and oriented itself along its direction of travel. It then parked its solar panels and tucked away its high-gain antenna to protect them from the thruster exhaust. The maneuver was performed by the spacecraft based on previously developed procedures. Fermi fired all thrusters for one second and was back doing science within the hour. In 2012, the Goddard CARA team participated in collision-avoidance maneuvers for seven other missions. A month before the Fermi conjunction came to light, Landsat 7 dodged pieces of Fengyun-1C, a Chinese weather satellite deliberately destroyed in 2007 as part of a military test. And in May and October, respectively, NASA's Aura and CALIPSO Earth-observing satellites took steps to avoid fragments from Cosmos 2251, which in 2009 was involved in the first known satellite-to-satellite collision with Iridium 33. Learn more at: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/GLAST/news/bullet-dodge.html This video is public domain and can be downloaded at: http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a011200/a011229/ Like our videos? Subscribe to NASA's Goddard Shorts HD podcast: http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/iTunes/f0004_index.html Or find NASA Goddard Space Flight Center on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/NASA.GSFC Or find us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/NASAGoddard

What we call "light" is actually just a tiny fraction of the broad range of radiation on the electromagnetic radiation spectrum. The entire span stretches from very-low-energy radio waves through microwaves, infrared light, visible light, ultraviolet light, X rays, and finally to very-high-energy gamma rays. The processes producing photons (single particles of electromagnetic radiation) of each type of radiation differ, as do their energy, but all of the different forms of radiation are still just part of the electromagnetic spectrum's family. The only real difference between a gamma-ray photon and a visible-light photon is the energy. Gamma rays can have over a billion times the energy of the type of light visible to our eyes. They are produced by the hottest and most energetic objects in the universe, such as neutron stars and pulsars, supernova explosions, and regions around black holes. On Earth, gamma rays are generated by nuclear explosions, lightning, and the less dramatic activity of radioactive decay. In fact, gamma rays are so energetic that they are harmful to life on Earth. Luckily, Earth's atmosphere absorbs gamma rays, preventing them from affecting life on the ground. But this poses a problem if you want to observe the Universe in gamma-ray light. The very atmosphere that protects us from gamma rays prevents us from directly observing them from the ground. Astronomical observations of gamma-ray sources are therefore done with high-altitude balloons or satellites, above the protective blanket of Earth's atmosphere. The high energy of gamma rays poses another problem: they can pass right through any lens or mirror, making it very difficult to focus them in a telescope. Astronomical observations, therefore, must rely on a different technology to view the gamma-ray universe. Scientists must make use of methods developed by particle physicists, who have long understood techniques for measuring high-energy particles. The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope's specialized astronomical instruments employ detectors used and perfected by physicists interested in the interactions of subatomic particles. This video is public domain and can be downloaded at: http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/goto?10861 Like our videos? Subscribe to NASA's Goddard Shorts HD podcast: http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/iTunes/f0004_index.html Or find NASA Goddard Space Flight Center on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/NASA.GSFC Or find us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/NASAGoddard

The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope is a NASA observatory designed to reveal the high-energy universe in never-before-seen detail. With Fermi, astronomers have a unique tool to explore high-energy processes associated with solar flares, spinning neutron stars, outbursts from black holes, exploding stars, supernova remnants and energetic particles to gain insight into how the universe works. Fermi detects gamma rays, the most powerful form of light. How powerful? The energy of visible light falls between 2 and 3 electron volts, but the gamma rays detected by Fermi have energies several thousand to billions of times greater. Fermi carries two instruments. Its Large Area Telescope (LAT) is vastly more capable than instruments flown previously, with higher angular resolution, wider field of view, greater energy resolution and range, and more precise time resolution for each gamma ray detected. The LAT tracks gamma rays with energies from 20 million electron volts (MeV) to more than 300 billion electron volts (GeV). Fermi makes one orbit around Earth every 96 minutes and points the LAT upward at all times so our home planet never blocks its view of the cosmos. Scientists deliberately nod the LAT in a repeating pattern from one orbit to the next. It first looks north on one orbit, south on the next, and then north again, which allows the LAT to cover the entire sky in just two orbits. Every few weeks, the LAT deviates from its normal pattern to concentrate on particularly interesting targets, such as eruptions on the sun, brief but brilliant gamma-ray bursts associated with the birth of stellar-mass black holes, and outbursts from supermassive black holes in distant galaxies. Fermi's secondary instrument, the Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM) has a much larger field of view, covering the entire sky not blocked by Earth. The GBM provides spectral coverage from the lower limit of the LAT down to 8,000 electron volts. The GBM is now the premier detector of gamma-ray bursts and has provided new insight into terrestrial gamma-ray flashes, high-energy bursts produced above thunderstorms. With the LAT and GBM, Fermi is a flexible observatory for investigating the great range of astrophysical phenomena best studied in high-energy gamma rays. Since its launch on June 11, 2008, Fermi has made many discoveries.

The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope is a NASA observatory designed to reveal the high-energy universe in never-before-seen detail. With Fermi, astronomers have a unique tool to explore high-energy processes associated with solar flares, spinning neutron stars, outbursts from black holes, exploding stars, supernova remnants and energetic particles to gain insight into how the universe works. Fermi detects gamma rays, the most powerful form of light. How powerful? The energy of visible light falls between 2 and 3 electron volts, but the gamma rays detected by Fermi have energies several thousand to billions of times greater. Fermi carries two instruments. Its Large Area Telescope (LAT) is vastly more capable than instruments flown previously, with higher angular resolution, wider field of view, greater energy resolution and range, and more precise time resolution for each gamma ray detected. The LAT tracks gamma rays with energies from 20 million electron volts (MeV) to more than 300 billion electron volts (GeV). Fermi makes one orbit around Earth every 96 minutes and points the LAT upward at all times so our home planet never blocks its view of the cosmos. Scientists deliberately nod the LAT in a repeating pattern from one orbit to the next. It first looks north on one orbit, south on the next, and then north again, which allows the LAT to cover the entire sky in just two orbits. (For a LAT's-eye view of these motions, see this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QpMeEdmZPM). Every few weeks, the LAT deviates from its normal pattern to concentrate on particularly interesting targets, such as eruptions on the sun, brief but brilliant gamma-ray bursts associated with the birth of stellar-mass black holes, and outbursts from supermassive black holes in distant galaxies. Fermi's secondary instrument, the Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM) has a much larger field of view, covering the entire sky not blocked by Earth. The GBM provides spectral coverage from the lower limit of the LAT down to 8,000 electron volts. The GBM is now the premier detector of gamma-ray bursts and has provided new insight into terrestrial gamma-ray flashes, high-energy bursts produced above thunderstorms. With the LAT and GBM, Fermi is a flexible observatory for investigating the great range of astrophysical phenomena best studied in high-energy gamma rays. Since its launch on June 11, 2008, Fermi has made many discoveries. Some of these findings include: Testing the fabric of time and space: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mkKhn53L68 Gigantic gamma-ray emitting bubbles in the Milky Way: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXmPxSP225Y Antimatter from lightning on Earth: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXKt7UVjd-I Huge flares in the Crab Nebula: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDhdwgK218E A surprisingly young millisecond pulsar: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZL-xynHopo New insights into dark matter: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5ucytz2C7I Gamma rays from solar flares: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mc-wQwaUh_Q Light from the early universe: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L51cqVTv37I Proving supernova remnants produce cosmic rays: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3ue7cEocvI For more information about Fermi: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/GLAST/main/index.html This video is public domain and can be downloaded at: http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/goto?10861 Like our videos? Subscribe to NASA's Goddard Shorts HD podcast: http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/iTunes/f0004_index.html Or find NASA Goddard Space Flight Center on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/NASA.GSFC Or find us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/NASAGoddard

A new study using observations from NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope reveals the first clear-cut evidence that the expanding debris of exploded stars produces some of the fastest-moving matter in the universe. This discovery is a major step toward meeting one of Fermi's primary mission goals. Cosmic rays are subatomic particles that move through space at nearly the speed of light. About 90 percent of them are protons, with the remainder consisting of electrons and atomic nuclei. In their journey across the galaxy, the electrically charged particles become deflected by magnetic fields. This scrambles their paths and makes it impossible to trace their origins directly. Through a variety of mechanisms, these speedy particles can lead to the emission of gamma rays, the most powerful form of light and a signal that travels to us directly from its sources. Two supernova remnants, known as IC 443 and W44, are expanding into cold, dense clouds of interstellar gas. This material emits gamma rays when struck by high-speed particles escaping the remnants. Scientists have been unable to ascertain which particle is responsible for this emission because cosmic-ray protons and electrons give rise to gamma rays with similar energies. Now, after analyzing four years of data, Fermi scientists see a gamma-ray feature from both remnants that, like a fingerprint, proves the culprits are protons. When cosmic-ray protons smash into normal protons, they produce a short-lived particle called a neutral pion. The pion quickly decays into a pair of gamma rays. This emission falls within a specific band of energies associated with the rest mass of the neutral pion, and it declines steeply toward lower energies. Detecting this low-end cutoff is clear proof that the gamma rays arise from decaying pions formed by protons accelerated within the supernova remnants. This video is public domain and can be downloaded at: http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/goto?11209 Like our videos? Subscribe to NASA's Goddard Shorts HD podcast: http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/iTunes/f0004_index.html Or find NASA Goddard Space Flight Center on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/NASA.GSFC Or find us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/NASAGoddard

In 2011, a months-long blast of energy launched by an enormous black hole almost 11 billion years ago swept past Earth. Using a combination of data from NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope and the National Science Foundation's Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA), the world's largest radio telescope, astronomers have zeroed in on the source of this ancient outburst. Theorists expect gamma-ray outbursts occur only in close proximity to a galaxy's central black hole, the powerhouse ultimately responsible for the activity. A few rare observations suggested this is not the case. The 2011 flares from a galaxy known as 4C +71.07 now give astronomers the clearest and most distant evidence that the theory still needs some work. The gamma-ray emission originated about 70 light-years away from the galaxy's central black hole. The 4C +71.07 galaxy was discovered as a source of strong radio emission in the 1960s. NASA's Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory, which operated in the 1990s, detected high-energy flares, but the galaxy was quiet during Fermi's first two and a half years in orbit. In early November 2011, at the height of the outburst, the galaxy was more than 10,000 times brighter than the combined luminosity of all of the stars in our Milky Way galaxy. Located in the constellation Ursa Major, 4C +71.07 is so far away that its light takes 10.6 billion years to reach Earth. Astronomers are seeing this galaxy as it existed when the universe was less than one-fourth of its present age. At the galaxy's core lies a supersized black hole weighing 2.6 billion times the sun's mass. Some of the matter falling toward the black hole becomes accelerated outward at almost the speed of light, creating dual particle jets blasting in opposite directions. One jet happens to point almost directly toward Earth. This characteristic makes 4C +71.07 a blazar, a classification that includes some of the brightest gamma-ray sources in the sky. In autumn 2011, the VLBA images revealed a bright knot that appeared to move outward at a speed 20 times faster than light. The knot passed through a bright stationary feature of the jet, which the astronomers refer to as its radio 'core', on April 9, 2011. This occurred within days of Fermi's detection of renewed gamma-ray flaring in the blazar. Marscher and Jorstad noted that the blazar brightened at visible wavelengths in step with the higher-energy emission. During the most intense period of flaring, from October 2011 to January 2012, the scientists found the polarization direction of the blazar's visible light rotated in the same manner as radio emissions from the knot. They concluded the knot was responsible for the visible and the gamma-ray light, which varied in sync. This association allowed the researchers to pinpoint the location of the gamma-ray outburst to about 70 light-years from the black hole. The astronomers think that the gamma rays were produced when electrons moving near the speed of light within the jet collided with visible and infrared light originating outside of the jet. Such a collision can kick the light up to much higher energies, a process known as inverse-Compton scattering. The source of the lower-energy light is unclear at the moment. The researchers speculate the source may be an outer, slow-moving sheath that surrounds the jet.

Researchers studying thunderstorms have made a surprising discovery: The lightning we see with our eyes has a dark competitor that discharges storm clouds and flings antimatter into space. Astrophysicists and meteorologists are scrambling to understand "dark lightning."

Whenever a lightning bolt flashes, it releases a Terrestrial Gamma-ray Flash (TGF), the highest-energy light that occurs on Earth. Thanks to improved data analysis these outbursts will be easier to capture by the Fermi Gamma-Ray telescope.

During a powerful solar blast in March, NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope detected the highest-energy light ever associated with an eruption on the sun. The discovery heralds Fermi's new role as a solar observatory, a powerful new tool for understanding solar outbursts during the sun's maximum period of activity. "For most of Fermi's four years in orbit, its Large Area Telescope (LAT) saw the sun as a faint, steady gamma-ray source thanks to the impacts of high-speed particles called cosmic rays," said Nicola Omodei, an astrophysicist at Stanford University in California. "Now we're beginning to see what the sun itself can do." A solar flare is an explosive blast of light and charged particles. The powerful March 7 flare, which earned a classification of X5.4 based on the peak intensity of its X-rays, is the strongest eruption so far observed by Fermi's LAT. The flare produced such an outpouring of gamma rays -- a form of light with even greater energy than X-rays -- that the sun briefly became the brightest object in the gamma-ray sky. At the flare's peak, the LAT detected gamma rays with two billion times the energy of visible light, or about 4 billion electron volts (GeV), easily setting a record for the highest-energy light ever detected during or just after a solar flare. The flux of high-energy gamma rays, defined as those with energies beyond 100 million electron volts (MeV), was 1,000 times greater than the sun's steady output. The March 7 flare also is notable for the persistence of its gamma-ray emission. Fermi's LAT detected high-energy gamma rays for about 20 hours, two and a half times longer than any event on record. Additionally, the event marks the first time a greater-than-100-MeV gamma-ray source has been localized to the sun's disk, thanks to the LAT's keen angular resolution. Flares and other eruptive solar events produce gamma rays by accelerating charged particles, which then collide with matter in the sun's atmosphere and visible surface. For instance, interactions among protons result in short-lived subatomic particles called pions, which produce high-energy gamma rays when they decay. Nuclei excited by collisions with lower-energy ions give off characteristic gamma rays as they settle down. Accelerated electrons emit gamma rays as they collide with protons and atomic nuclei. Solar eruptions are now on the rise as the sun progresses toward the peak of its roughly 11-year-long activity cycle, now expected in mid-2013. This video is public domain and can be downloaded at: ‪http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/goto?11000‬ Like our videos? Subscribe to NASA's Goddard Shorts HD podcast: ‪http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/iTunes/f0004_index.html‬ Or find NASA Goddard Space Flight Center on facebook: ‪http://www.facebook.com/NASA.GSFC‬ Or find us on Twitter: ‪http://twitter.com/NASAGoddard‬

A pulsar is a rapidly spinning neutron star, which is the small incredibly dense remnant of much more massive star. A teaspoon of matter from a neutron star weighs as much as Mount Everest and the neutron star is so compact That a ball about fifteen miles across contains more matter than our sun. Neutron stars spin between seven and forty thousand times a minute and form with incredibly strong magnetic fields. Rapid spin and intense magnetic fields drive powerful beams of electromagnetic radiation including gamma rays. As the pulsar rotates, these beams sweep the sky like a lighthouse. To a distant observer, the pulsar appears to blink on and off. Pulsars slow down as they age but some of the oldest pulsars spin hundreds of times a second. Each of these millisecond pulsars orbits a normal star. Over time, the impact of gas pulled from the normal star has spun the pulsar up to incredible speeds. This accretion may be the cause of their weaker magnetic fields. Despite this, these pulsars also emit gamma rays. Gamma rays are the highest energy form of light. Dave Thompson: There's the light we see with our eyes, but their lots of other types of light. Gamma rays are the most energetic form of light, the most powerful. Valerie Connaughton: Gamma rays are the part of what we call the electromagnetic spectrum which starts in radio, at very long wavelengths, goes through optical, then through x-rays, and then gamma rays are the very highest energy form of that type of radiation. Neil Gehrels: The reason that it's important to look at the high-energy gamma rays is that many objects, the most violent and some of the most interesting objects in the universe emit most of their light in this high-energy gamma ray part. Phil Plait: And the only thing that can generate gamma rays are incredibly violent events, incredibly energetic events. And we're talking stars exploding and neutron stars with really strong magnetic fields and really exotic and strange objects like that. Isabelle Grenier: It's like a Christmas tree it's shining, and it's flaring and their are eruptions every day. Peter Michelson: Gamma-ray bursts being an example of something that, for a brief instant of time outshines the entire rest of the universe. Chip Meegan: These are the biggest explosions in the universe. The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope is a powerful space observatory that opens a wide window on the universe. Gamma rays are the highest-energy form of light, and the gamma-ray sky is spectacularly different from the one we perceive with our own eyes. With a huge leap in all key capabilities, Fermi is enabling scientists to observe some of the universes most powerful phenomena, including supermassive black holes, pulsars, and gamma-ray bursts, which briefly outshine whole galaxies. Fermi has two instruments for observing gamma rays. It's Large Area Telescope, or LAT, maps gamma rays over the entire sky every three hours and is Fermi's main detector. The other instrument is called the Gamma Ray Burst Monitor or GBM. It looks for spectacular flashes of gamma rays from, among other things, the birth of black holes far across the universe. credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center source: http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/goto?10861