2008 SPACE SCIENCE VIDEOTAPES |
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Tape Title | Record ID | Date Produced | TRT: |
Synopsis |
| NASA RENAMES GLAST OBSERVATORY, REVEALS ENTIRE GAMMA-RAY SKY | G08-HD117 | 8/26/08 | 6:38 | NASA's newest observatory, the Gamma-Ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST), has begun its mission of exploring the universe in high-energy gamma rays. The spacecraft and its revolutionary instruments passed their orbital checkout with flying colors. NASA announced today that GLAST has been renamed the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. The new name honors Prof. Enrico Fermi (1901 Š 1954), a pioneer in high-energy physics. Scientists expect Fermi will discover many new pulsars in our own galaxy, reveal powerful processes near supermassive black holes at the cores of thousands of active galaxies across, and enable a search for signs of new physical laws.
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TAPE CONTENTS: |
| ITEM (1): All-Sky Map - For two months following the spacecraft's June 11 launch, scientists tested and calibrated its two instruments, the Large Area Telescope (LAT) and the GLAST Burst Monitor (GBM). The LAT team today unveiled an all-sky image showing bright emission in the plane of the Milky Way (center), bright pulsars, and supermassive black holes. The map combines 95
hours of the instrumentÕs "first light" observations.
Courtesy: NASA/DOE/International LAT Team
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| ITEM (2): Orthographic Map - Astronomers wrapped the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope's first all-sky map over a sphere to produce this view of the gamma-ray universe. The globe in this animation rotates showing the galactic plane and the north galactic pole, then tilts up to show the south galactic pole region.
Courtesy: NASA/DOE/International LAT Team
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| ITEM (3): Vela Pulsar - Gas and dust in the plane of the Milky Way glows in gamma rays thanks to collisions with accelerated nuclei called cosmic rays. The famous Crab Nebula and Vela pulsars also shine brightly at these wavelengths. This animated close-up shows the Vela pulsar, which beams radiation every 89 milliseconds as it spins. The pulses are shown slowed down by a factor of 20.
Courtesy: NASA/DOE/International LAT Team
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| ITEM (4): Gamma-Rays in Pulsars - This animation takes us into a spinning pulsar, with its strong magnetic field rotating along with it. Clouds of charged particles move along the field lines and their gamma-rays are beamed like a lighthouse beacon by the magnetic fields. As our line of sight moves into the beam, we see the pulsations once every rotation of the neutron star. Fermi is expected to discover many more radio-quiet pulsars, providing key information about how these exotic objects work.
Courtesy: NASA
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| ITEM (5): Fermi Spacecraft - The Universe is home to numerous exotic and beautiful phenomena, some of which can generate inconceivable amounts of energy. NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope will open this high-energy world as the first imaging gamma-ray observatory to survey the entire sky every day and with high sensitivity. Fermi is an astrophysics and particle physics partnership, developed in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy, along with important contributions from academic institutions and partners in France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Sweden, and the U.S.
Courtesy: NASA
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| ITEM (6): LAT Instrument - The Large Area Telescope (LAT) scans the entire sky every 3 hours when operating in survey mode, which will occupy most of the telescope's observing time during the first year of operations. These fast snapshots will let scientists monitor rapidly changing gamma-ray sources. This animation shows a gamma ray (purple) entering a corner tower of the LAT's Tracker. After the electron (red) and positron (blue) cascade down the tower, their incoming paths (red/blue) combine to show the original path (purple) of the incoming gamma ray that created them.
Courtesy: NASA
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