Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope

About Fermi

Fermi Instruments

The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope is a satellite observatory for photon energies from 8 keV to over 300 GeV. Launched on 11 June, 2008, it circles Earth every 96 minutes in a 26° inclination orbit at an altitude of 535 km.

Fermi carries two scientific instruments, pictured at left: the Large Area Telescope (LAT) and the Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM). Some important performance characteristics are shown below.

The observatory typically operates in a survey mode, allowing a scan of the entire gamma-ray sky every two orbits.

More about the instruments can be found at NASA's Fermi Web site, http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/GLAST/spacecraft/index.html

More about Fermi observation modes can be found at the Fermi Science Support Center site, http://fermi.gsfc.nasa.gov/ssc/observations/types/

Large Area Telescope Gamma-ray Burst Monitor
Pair-production instrument NaI and BGO scintillators
Energy range: 20 MeV to > 300 GeV Energy range: 8 keV to 40 MeV
Field of view: 2.4 steradians Field of view: 9.5 steradians
Single photon angular resolution: <1° at 1 GeV Gamma-ray burst localization: typical 3°
Timing accuracy: 1 microsecond Timing accuracy: 2 microseconds
LAT Web site:
https://www-glast.stanford.edu/instrument.html
GBM Web site:
http://f64.nsstc.nasa.gov/gbm/instrument/

NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope is an astrophysics and particle physics partnership, developed in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy and with important contributions from academic institutions and partners in France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Sweden and the United States.

Some Fermi Science Highlights