News and Events
November 2, 2009
NASA's Fermi Telescope Detects Gamma-Ray From "Star Factories" in Other Galaxies
Nearby galaxies undergoing a furious pace of star formation also emit lots of gamma rays, say astronomers using NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. Two so-called "starburst" galaxies, plus a satellite of our own Milky Way galaxy, represent a new category of gamma-ray-emitting objects detected both by Fermi and ground-based observatories.
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October 28, 2009
Fermi Telescope Caps First Year With Glimpse of Space-Time
During its first year of operations, NASA's Fermi Gamma Ray Space Telescope mapped the extreme sky with unprecedented resolution and sensitivity.
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July 3, 2009
NASA's Fermi Telescope Probes Dozens of Pulsars
With NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, astronomers now are getting their best look at those whirling stellar cinders known as pulsars. In two studies published in the July 2 edition of Science Express, international teams have analyzed gamma-rays from two dozen pulsars, including 16 discovered by Fermi. Fermi is the first spacecraft able to identify pulsars by their gamma-ray emission alone.
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May 4, 2009
NASA's Fermi Explores High-energy "Space Invaders"
Since its launch last June, NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has discovered a new class of pulsars, probed gamma-ray bursts and watched flaring jets in galaxies billions of light-years away. Today at the American Physical Society meeting in Denver, Colo., Fermi scientists revealed new details about high-energy particles implicated in a nearby cosmic mystery.
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April 22, 2009
Fermi Active Galaxies Ready for Their Close-Up
An international team of astronomers has used the world's biggest radio telescope to look deep into the brightest galaxies that NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope can see. The study solidifies the link between an active galaxy's gamma-ray emissions and its powerful radio-emitting jets.
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April 3, 2009
Active Galaxies Flare and Fade in Fermi Telescope All-Sky Movie
The gamma-ray sky comes alive in a movie made from data acquired by NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope during its first three months of operations. Gamma rays from sources near and far turn the sky into a hypnotic froth. The sun arcs serenely across the northern sky as active galaxies called blazars flare up and fade out.
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March 18, 2009
NASA's Fermi Mission, Namibia's HESS Telescopes Explore a Blazar
An international team of astrophysicists using telescopes on the ground and in space have uncovered surprising changes in radiation emitted by an active galaxy. The picture that emerges from these first-ever simultaneous observations with optical, X-ray and new-generation gamma-ray telescopes is much more complex than scientists expected and challenges current theories of how the radiation is generated.
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March 17, 2009
Fermi Update
The Fermi spacecraft and LAT both experienced processor resets, and data taking stopped around 2009-03-11 03:41 UT. Both Fermi instruments were powered off and the spacecraft put itself into a stable configuration. There are good hypotheses for the root causes, and the investigation will continue. In the meantime, the spacecraft and both instruments have been completely restored to pre-event configurations, thanks to excellent work across the team, and routine science operations were restarted over the weekend. Preliminary checks, from low-level hardware distributions through a quick look at the bright pulsars, indicate everything is in excellent shape. GRB alerts have been re-enabled. The valid data periods will be marked very soon, after more detailed checkout.
March 11, 2009
Fermi's Best-Ever Look at the Gamma-Ray Sky
A new map combining nearly three months of data from NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope is giving astronomers an unprecedented look at the high-energy cosmos. To Fermi's eyes, the universe is ablaze with gamma rays from sources within the solar system to galaxies billions of light-years away.
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February 19, 2009
NASA's Fermi Telescope Sees Most Extreme Gamma-ray Blast Yet
The first gamma-ray burst to be seen in high-resolution from NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope is one for the record books. The blast had the greatest total energy, the fastest motions and the highest-energy initial emissions ever seen.
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February 10, 2009
NASA'S Swift, Fermi Probe Fireworks from a Flaring Gamma-ray Star
Astronomers using NASA's Swift satellite and Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope are seeing frequent blasts from a stellar remnant 30,000 light-years away. The high-energy fireworks arise from a rare type of neutron star known as a soft-gamma-ray repeater. Such objects unpredictably send out a series of X-ray and gamma-ray flares.
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January 12, 2009
Fermi Cycle-2 Guest Investigator Proposals Due Mar 6, 2009
Fermi Cycle-2 Guest Investigator proposals are due on March 6, 2009. Click here for proposal preparation and submission details. In support of proposal preparation activities, a LAT bright source list, and an initial release of the Fermi science analysis tools will be made available from this web site in early February.
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January 6, 2009
NASA'S Fermi Telescope Unveils a Dozen New Pulsars
NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has discovered 12 new gamma-ray-only pulsars and has detected gamma-ray pulses from 18 others. The finds are transforming our understanding of how these stellar cinders work.
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