LAT tagged posts

Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope detects Surprise Gamma-Ray feature Beyond our Galaxy

Artist's concept of gamma ray sky with dipole marked in magenta
This artist’s concept shows the entire sky in gamma rays with magenta circles illustrating the uncertainty in the direction from which more high-energy gamma rays than average seem to be arriving. In this view, the plane of our galaxy runs across the middle of the map. The circles enclose regions with a 68% (inner) and a 95% chance of containing the origin of these gamma rays.
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

Astronomers analyzing 13 years of data from NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope have found an unexpected and as yet unexplained feature outside of our galaxy.

“It is a completely serendipitous discovery,” said Alexander Kashlinsky, a cosmologist at the University of Maryland and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, who presented the research at the 243rd mee...

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Moon Glows Brighter than Sun in Images from NASA’s Fermi

These images show the steadily improving view of the Moon’s gamma-ray glow from NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. Each 5-by-5-degree image is centered on the Moon and shows gamma rays with energies above 31 million electron volts, or tens of millions of times that of visible light. At these energies, the Moon is actually brighter than the Sun. Brighter colors indicate greater numbers of gamma rays. This image sequence shows how longer exposure, ranging from two to 128 months (10.7 years), improved the view.
Credit: NASA/DOE/Fermi LAT Collaboration

If our eyes could see high-energy radiation called gamma rays, the Moon would appear brighter than the Sun! That’s how NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has seen our neighbor in space for the past decade...

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