GLAST Shows the World New Exotic and Beautiful Space Phenomena
A next generation of the new telescope will be launched into space this coming spring that cannot see visible light—yet can see gamma rays, while generating inconceivable amounts of energy with the most energetic photons as part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Called the “Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope”, or GLAST, it will allow the most energetic objects and universe events to be seen—such as black holes, supernovae, neutron stars, and many other newly seen types of phenomena—in addition to answering questions about the origin of cosmic rays, supermassive black hole systems, pulsars, along with other deep scientific questions.
Gamma-ray radiation is the most energetic form of radiation, a billion times more energetic than what is seen with the visible eye. NASA reports that physicists will be able to “study subatomic particles at energies far greater than those seen in ground-based particle accelerator” while cosmologists will have the ability to gain valuable information about the birth and early evolution of the Universe. GLAST will use this high-energy to study the skies, teaming up with the U.S. Department of Energy, several institutions, and government agencies from France, Germany, Japan, Italy, and Sweden for the launching of GLAST in early 2008.
Following in the gigantic footsteps of the CGRO-EGRET experiment, 1991-1999, it will observe celestial gamma-ray sources in the high-energy band from 10MeV to more than 100 GeV. Key objectives of the GLAST mission are:
*To understand the mechanisms of particle acceleration in AGNs, pulsars, and SNRs.
*Resolve the gamma-ray sky: unidentified sources and diffuse emission.
*Determine the high-energy behavior of gamma-ray bursts and transients.
*Probe dark matter and early Universe.
The first gamma ray observatory that will be able to survey the entire sky, the GLAST, consists of two different instruments—the Large Area Telescope and the GLAST Burst Monitor. When the gamma ray photons strike a tungsten plate in the telescope, matter is created that produces an electron and a positron. These two particles, both opposites, form tracks which tell scientists which direction the gamma ray photon came from.
Even though the GLAST is in its developmental stages, it will be able to follow the previous gamma ray observations—NASA’s Swift spacecraft– launched earlier, in 2004. Another observatory—the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory—had been placed into orbit in 1991 by the space shuttle Atlantis, and deorbited in 2000. And the European Space Agency’s Integral observatory, having the capability of observing objects in gamma rays, x-rays, and visible light, was launched in 2002 from the Kazakhstan.
Scientists feel that gamma rays are extremely important because the source of more than half the gamma rays detected by the EGRET observatory is unknown. Also, many scientists feel that some gamma ray bursts could possibly be created by dark matter collisions.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 19th, 2007 at 9:55 am and is filed under Space Agency News, The Gear to Get There. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
