Universe  ID: 11130

Fermi Observation of Early Background Light Animation

Released on November 1, 2012
This animation tracks several gamma rays through space and time, from their emission in the jet of a distant blazar to their arrival in Fermi's Large Area Telescope (LAT). During their journey, the number of randomly moving ultraviolet and optical photons (blue) increases as more and more stars are born in the universe. Eventually, one of the gamma rays encounters a photon of starlight and the gamma ray transforms into an electron and a positron. The remaining gamma-ray photons arrive at Fermi, interact with tungsten plates in the LAT, and produce the electrons and positrons whose paths through the detector allows astronomers to backtrack the gamma rays to their source.
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Artist's rendering of the process described above.
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Still from animation
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Still from animation
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still from animation
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Animation that includes a view of how Fermi’s Large Area Telescope detects gamma rays by converting them into electron-positron pairs. This is an upres of the original animation frames to UHD resolution (3840 x 2160).

Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

 

Related

NASA's Fermi Explores the Early Universe

Credits

Cruz deWilde (Avant Gravity): Lead Animator
Scott Wiessinger (USRA): Producer
Francis Reddy (Syneren Technologies): Producer
Francis Reddy (Syneren Technologies): Writer
Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center/Cruz deWilde

Short URL to share this page:
https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11130

Mission:
Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope

Data Used:
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 Animations

Goddard TV Tape:
G2012-104 -- Fermi EBL Media Telecon

Keywords:
SVS >> Galaxy
SVS >> HDTV
GCMD >> Earth Science >> Spectral/Engineering >> Gamma Ray
SVS >> Hyperwall
SVS >> Black Hole
SVS >> Astrophysics
SVS >> Universe
SVS >> Space
SVS >> Fermi
SVS >> Blazar
SVS >> Star
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