Universe ID: 10407

Fermi All-sky Movie Shows Flaring, Fading Blazars

Released on April 3, 2009

This all-sky movie shows counts of gamma rays with energies greater than 300 million electron volts from August 4 to October 30, 2008, detected by Fermi's Large Area Telescope. Brighter colors indicate brighter gamma-ray sources. The circles show the northern (left) and southern galactic sky. Their edges lie along the plane of our galaxy, the Milky Way.

Because this is an unusual view of the sky, the movies first overlay the stars and establish the locations of well- known constellations: Ursa Major (which includes the Big Dipper), Boötes, and Virgo in the northern galactic map; Cetus, Aries, and Pegasus in the southern galactic map. Notable gamma-ray sources include the sun (moving through the northern sky), the gamma-ray-only pulsar PSR J1836+5925 — a member of a new pulsar class discovered by Fermi — and numerous blazars (active galaxies). The blazars 3C 273, AO 0235+164, and PKS 1502+106 are highlighted.

This all-sky movie shows Fermi LAT counts of gamma rays with energies greater than 300 million electron volts from August 4 to October 30, 2008. Brighter colors indicate brighter gamma-ray sources. The circles show the northern (left) and southern galactic sky. Their edges lie along the plane of our galaxy, the Milky Way.

This all-sky movie shows Fermi LAT counts of gamma rays with energies greater than 300 million electron volts from August 4 to October 30, 2008. Brighter colors indicate brighter gamma-ray sources. The circle shows the northern galactic sky. Its edges lie along the plane of our galaxy, the Milky Way.

This all-sky movie shows Fermi LAT counts of gamma rays with energies greater than 300 million electron volts from August 4 to October 30, 2008. Brighter colors indicate brighter gamma-ray sources. The circle shows the southern galactic sky. Its edges lie along the plane of our galaxy, the Milky Way.

For More Information

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/GLAST/news/flare_fade.html

Credits

Jean Ballet (CEA Saclay): Lead Animator
Cruz deWilde (Avant Gravity): Animator
Walt Feimer (HTSI): Animator
Stefanie Misztal (UMBC): Producer
Jean Ballet (CEA Saclay): Scientist
Elizabeth Hays (NASA/GSFC): Scientist
Steven Ritz (NASA/GSFC): Scientist
Francis Reddy (SPSYS): Writer

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/DOE/Fermi LAT Collaboration

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https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10407

Missions:
Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope
GLAST

Data Used:

Fermi/LAT

Event List

Fermi Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST) Large Area Telescope (LAT)

http://fermi.gsfc.nasa.gov

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Fermi

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Note: While we identify the data sets used in these visualizations, we do not store any further details nor the data sets themselves on our site.

This item is part of this series:
Astrophysics Visualizations

Keywords:
SVS >> HDTV
GCMD >> Earth Science >> Spectral/Engineering >> Gamma Ray
SVS >> Gamma Ray Burst
SVS >> Astrophysics
SVS >> Universe
SVS >> Pulsar
SVS >> GLAST
SVS >> Constellation
SVS >> Gamma Ray Observatory
SVS >> Fermi
SVS >> Blazar
NASA Science >> Universe

GCMD keywords can be found on the Internet with the following citation: Olsen, L.M., G. Major, K. Shein, J. Scialdone, S. Ritz, T. Stevens, M. Morahan, A. Aleman, R. Vogel, S. Leicester, H. Weir, M. Meaux, S. Grebas, C.Solomon, M. Holland, T. Northcutt, R. A. Restrepo, R. Bilodeau, 2013. NASA/Global Change Master Directory (GCMD) Earth Science Keywords. Version 8.0.0.0.0