Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope

News Archive

Nov 28, 2023

NASA's Fermi Mission Nets 300 Gamma-Ray Pulsars ... and Counting

A new catalog produced by a French-led international team of astronomers shows that NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has discovered 294 gamma-ray-emitting pulsars, while another 34 suspects await confirmation. This is 27 times the number known before the mission launched in 2008.
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Nov 14, 2023

Fermi-LAT Daily Aperture Light Curve of T CrB Now Available

T CrB (T Coronae Borealis) is a known recurrent nova with its long-anticipated next explosion expected in early 2024. Because of its proximity (distance ~0.9 kpc), T CrB is expected to be detected brightly as a >100 MeV gamma-ray transient. In consideration of its expected bright outburst in gamma rays, a preliminary daily light curve is publicly available.

Nov 01, 2023

LAT Server Offline

Due to system maintenance, the LAT data server will be offline starting around 6:30am EDT on Monday, November 6, and no new GBM data will be added to the archive. Service should be restored by 3pm.

Jul 31, 2023

Release of the Third Fermi Large Area Telescope Catalog of Gamma-ray Pulsars

We are pleased to announce that the Large Area Telescope Collaboration has released the third catalog of gamma-ray pulsars (3PC) using as much as 14 years of data. The catalog reports 340 gamma-ray pulsars and candidates, including 294 gamma-ray pulsars found in the LAT data; 33 millisecond pulsars (MSPs) discovered in deep radio searches of LAT sources; and a dozen optical and/or X-ray binary systems co-located with LAT sources that likely harbor gamma-ray MSPs. The electronic catalog version provides gamma-ray pulsar ephemerides, properties and fit results to guide and be compared with modeling results. An all-sky gamma-ray sensitivity map is provided for population synthesis studies. Photon data files are provided for the gamma-ray pulsars that include phase and model weights. The 3PC Catalog data products are available online, where you can find individual summary pages for the gamma-ray pulsars. The construction and details of the catalog are described in the 3PC paper. You can also find the 3PC pulsars as an overlay option for the Fermi LAT Light Curve Repository (LCR). Scroll down to "Data Overlays" at the left and slide the 3PC button to "on". The 3PC will now appear as a tab under "Catalog Sources". Clicking on one of the Source IDs in the table will take you to the individual pulsar summary page.

Jul 31, 2023

Fourth Incremental Release of the Fourth Fermi LAT Source Catalog

We are pleased to announce that the Large Area Telescope Collaboration has released 4FGL-DR4, an incremental version of the fourth full catalog of LAT sources, based on 14 years of survey data in the 50 MeV-1 TeV energy range. In this fourth data release, the number of sources increased from 6658 in 4FGL-DR3 with 12 years of data to 7194 in 4FGL-DR4 with 14 years of data. The DR4 analysis is similar to that used in DR3 and is described in the DR3 paper. The spectral parameters, spectral energy distributions, light curves and associations are updated for all sources. See the DR4 document and the 4FGL paper for the full details.

Jul 20, 2023

LAT data loss and delay in processing

Due to a temporary misconfiguration of the LAT while implementing routine updates to the tracker hot strip mask, there was a 1.75-hour loss of data on 18 July 2023 from 18:04 to 19:50 UTC. The configuration was quickly reverted and normal data taking was restored. A further inconsistency of the configuration with the ground pipeline has delayed processing of data acquired from 18 July 2023 19:50 UTC to 19 July 2023 17:31 UTC. These data will become available after manual reprocessing. Nominal data taking and automated processing resumed 19 July 2023 17:31 UTC.

Jun 19, 2023

make4FGLxml.py update

The standalone python script make4FGLxml.py has been replaced with the new Python package LATSourceModel. This new package represents a rework of the code to be cleaner, modular, better documented, and more efficient while also adding new functionality. For more information, see this README and Github. The old version of make4FGLxml.py is still available on the FSSC's user contributed tools page and will work with 4FGL-DR4, but no further development will occur.

May 23, 2023

Fermi Cycle-16 GI Selected Programs Announced

The stage-I selection process for the Fermi Cycle-16 Guest Investigator program has been completed. There were a total of 36 new programs selected for stage I out of 90 proposals submitted. A list of the selected programs, including the PIs, titles and abstracts is available on the FSSC web site.

Mar 28, 2023

NASA Missions Study What May Be a 1-In-10,000-Year Gamma-ray Burst

On Sunday, Oct. 9, 2022, a pulse of intense radiation swept through the solar system so exceptional that astronomers quickly dubbed it the BOAT - the brightest of all time.
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Mar 15, 2023

NASA's Fermi Captures Dynamic Gamma-Ray Sky in New Animation

Cosmic fireworks, invisible to our eyes, fill the night sky. We can get a glimpse of this elusive light show thanks to the Large Area Telescope (LAT) aboard NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, which observes the sky in gamma rays, the highest-energy form of light.
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Feb 9, 2023

Reminder: Fermi Cycle-16 Proposals Are Due in One Week

We wish to remind you that Fermi Cycle-16 Guest Investigator proposals are due on February 16, 2023, just a week from now. Please refer to our proposers web page for an up-to-date description of the program, submission details and schedule.

Jan 26, 2023

NASA's Fermi Detects First Gamma-Ray Eclipses From 'Spider' Star Systems

Scientists have discovered the first gamma-ray eclipses from a special type of binary star system using data from NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. These so-called spider systems each contain a pulsar - the superdense, rapidly rotating remains of a star that exploded in a supernova - that slowly erodes its companion.
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Jan 23, 2023

Fermi Cycle 16 Proposal Deadline is Approaching

The deadline for Fermi Cycle-16 Guest Investigator proposals is fast approaching: Feb 16, 2023, 16:30 EST. To help you in preparing your proposals, the Fermi Science Support Center will host a virtual workshop on Jan. 24, at 14:00 EST. We will provide information on proposal submission and evaluation processes, as well as the latest news on Fermi.

Jan 19, 2023

Fermi Summer School

We are pleased to announce that applications are now being accepted for the Fermi Summer School. This will be the 12th year that the Fermi Mission, in partnership with the University of Delaware, has organized a workshop designed to support graduate students and post docs getting started with Fermi, gamma-ray astrophysics and related topics.
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