Fermi All-sky Movie Shows Flaring, Fading Blazars

  • Released Friday, April 3rd, 2009
  • Updated Wednesday, May 3rd, 2023 at 1:54PM
  • ID: 10407

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.

Looped Fermi all-sky map in the northern galactic sky.

Looped Fermi all-sky map in the southern galactic sky.

For More Information

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

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NASA/DOE/Fermi LAT Collaboration

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