Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
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"alt_text": "This illustration of the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory shows the locations of its four instruments, the Burst And Transient Source Experiment (BATSE), the Oriented Scintillation Spectrometer Experiment (OSSE), the Imaging Compton Telescope (COMPTEL), and the Energetic Gamma Ray Experiment Telescope (EGRET). Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center",
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"alt_text": "This illustration of the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory shows the locations of its four instruments, the Burst And Transient Source Experiment (BATSE), the Oriented Scintillation Spectrometer Experiment (OSSE), the Imaging Compton Telescope (COMPTEL), and the Energetic Gamma Ray Experiment Telescope (EGRET). Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center",
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"alt_text": "This illustration of the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory shows the locations of its four instruments, the Burst And Transient Source Experiment (BATSE), the Oriented Scintillation Spectrometer Experiment (OSSE), the Imaging Compton Telescope (COMPTEL), and the Energetic Gamma Ray Experiment Telescope (EGRET). Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center",
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"alt_text": "This illustration of the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory shows the locations of its four instruments, the Burst And Transient Source Experiment (BATSE), the Oriented Scintillation Spectrometer Experiment (OSSE), the Imaging Compton Telescope (COMPTEL), and the Energetic Gamma Ray Experiment Telescope (EGRET). Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center",
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"description": "Twenty-five years ago this week, NASA launched the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, an astronomical satellite that transformed our knowledge of the high-energy sky. Over its nine-year lifetime, Compton produced the first-ever all-sky survey in gamma rays, the most energetic and penetrating form of light, discovered hundreds of new sources and unveiled a universe that was unexpectedly dynamic and diverse.
Compton's many findings included the discovery of a new class of galaxy powered by supermassive black holes, the surprising detection of gamma rays from thunderstorms on Earth, and the most persuasive evidence to date that gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) were the most distant and powerful explosions in the cosmos. Astronomers were so ecited by the initial results, it wasn't long before discussions turned to the need for another mission with improved instruments to get a better look, a trail that ultimately led to NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope.
Compton was launched April 5, 1991, on STS-37, the eighth flight of the space shuttle Atlantis. At the time, the 17-ton observatory was the heaviest astrophysical payload ever flown, a record not broken until the launch of NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and its rocket booster in 1999. The crew deployed the satellite, then known simply as the Gamma Ray Observatory, on April 7.
NASA soon renamed the satellite in honor of Arthur Holly Compton, an American physicist and Nobel laureate who discovered that high-energy light underwent a change in wavelength when it scattered off electrons and other charged particles. This process played a central role in gamma-ray detection techniques used in all of the observatory's instruments.
Compton was the second of NASA's Great Observatories, a series of ambitious astronomical satellites designed to explore different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum. The first launch of the program was the Hubble Space Telescope in 1990. Compton was followed by the Chandra X-ray Observatory in 1999 and the infrared-sensitive Spitzer Space Telescope in 2003. All of them remain operational today except Compton, which was deliberately deorbited in 2000. Its scientific legacy continues in Fermi, Swift and other space observatories exploring the universe's highest-energy light and the extreme phenomena producing it.
For a more detailed summary of Compton's key results, download this NASA brochure published in late 1990s.",
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"description": "Unlabeled version of the Compton illustration.
Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
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Credit: NASA/Ken Cameron
", "items": [ { "id": 270738, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 425388, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a012100/a012194/Compton_flies_free_STS037-96-009.jpg", "filename": "Compton_flies_free_STS037-96-009.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "NASA's Compton Gamma Ray Observatory drifts away from the space shuttle Atlantis on April 7, 1991, following its deployment during the STS-37 mission. Compton's successful career ended in June 2000 when the observatory reentered Earth's atmosphere. Credit: NASA/Ken Cameron", "width": 3000, "height": 2866, "pixels": 8598000 } } ], "extra_data": {} }, { "id": 334333, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/12194/#media_group_334333", "widget": "Single image", "title": "", "caption": "", "description": "The Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory prior to deployment, still attached to space shuttle Atlantis by the robot arm, during the STS-37 mission in April 1991.
Credit: NASA/STS-37 crew
", "items": [ { "id": 270739, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 425389, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a012100/a012194/Compton_on_RMS_STS037-99-056.jpg", "filename": "Compton_on_RMS_STS037-99-056.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "The Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory prior to deployment, still attached to space shuttle Atlantis by the robot arm, during the STS-37 mission in April 1991.Credit: NASA/STS-37 crew", "width": 3000, "height": 2890, "pixels": 8670000 } } ], "extra_data": {} }, { "id": 334334, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/12194/#media_group_334334", "widget": "Single image", "title": "", "caption": "", "description": "When Compton launched, most astronomers thought gamma-ray bursts were related to dense neutron stars in our galaxy. With enough bursts, they thought, the distribution of GRBs would concentrate in certain regions, such as the galactic plane. Instead, BATSE showed that gamma-ray bursts occur all over the sky and their distribution bears no sign of the galaxy's underlying structure. This was compelling evidence GRBs were exploding in distant galaxies, an interpretation later shown to be correct.
Credit: NASA/BATSE Team
", "items": [ { "id": 270740, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 425391, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a012100/a012194/BATSE_GRBs_1080.jpg", "filename": "BATSE_GRBs_1080.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "When Compton launched, most astronomers thought gamma-ray bursts were related to dense neutron stars in our galaxy. With enough bursts, they thought, the distribution of GRBs would concentrate in certain regions, such as the galactic plane. Instead, BATSE showed that gamma-ray bursts occur all over the sky and their distribution bears no sign of the galaxy's underlying structure. This was compelling evidence GRBs were exploding in distant galaxies, an interpretation later shown to be correct. Credit: NASA/BATSE Team ", "width": 1920, "height": 1080, "pixels": 2073600 } }, { "id": 270741, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 425390, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a012100/a012194/BATSE_GRBs_2160.jpg", "filename": "BATSE_GRBs_2160.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "When Compton launched, most astronomers thought gamma-ray bursts were related to dense neutron stars in our galaxy. With enough bursts, they thought, the distribution of GRBs would concentrate in certain regions, such as the galactic plane. Instead, BATSE showed that gamma-ray bursts occur all over the sky and their distribution bears no sign of the galaxy's underlying structure. This was compelling evidence GRBs were exploding in distant galaxies, an interpretation later shown to be correct. Credit: NASA/BATSE Team ", "width": 3841, "height": 2161, "pixels": 8300401 } } ], "extra_data": {} }, { "id": 334335, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/12194/#media_group_334335", "widget": "Single image", "title": "", "caption": "", "description": "These images encapsulate 25 years of progress in gamma-ray astrophysics. Top: The EGRET sky as seen in gamma rays above 100 MeV. Brighter colors indicate greater numbers of gamma rays. Its most prominent feature is the central plane of the galaxy, which runs across the middle of the map, a result of gamma rays produced when accelerated particles strike interstellar gas and starlight. The largest yellow spot on the right side of the plane is the Vela pulsar, one of five new gamma-ray pulsars EGRET discovered. The prominent reddish blob at top right is the blazar 3C 279. Bottom: The all-sky map produced by Fermi's Large Area Telescope (LAT), using data from Aug. 4, 2008, to Aug. 4, 2015, is sharper, more detailed and shows higher-energy gamma rays than EGRET's. In fact, the LAT has now captured more high-energy gamma rays from a single source, the Vela pulsar, than the total number detected by EGRET.
Credit: NASA/EGRET Team (top) and NASA/DOE/Fermi LAT Collaboration
", "items": [ { "id": 270742, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 425392, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a012100/a012194/EGRET_LAT_compared_1800.jpg", "filename": "EGRET_LAT_compared_1800.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "These images encapsulate 25 years of progress in gamma-ray astrophysics. Top: The EGRET sky as seen in gamma rays above 100 MeV. Brighter colors indicate greater numbers of gamma rays. Its most prominent feature is the central plane of the galaxy, which runs across the middle of the map, a result of gamma rays produced when accelerated particles strike interstellar gas and starlight. The largest yellow spot on the right side of the plane is the Vela pulsar, one of five new gamma-ray pulsars EGRET discovered. The prominent reddish blob at top right is the blazar 3C 279. Bottom: The all-sky map produced by Fermi's Large Area Telescope (LAT), using data from Aug. 4, 2008, to Aug. 4, 2015, is sharper, more detailed and shows higher-energy gamma rays than EGRET's. In fact, the LAT has now captured more high-energy gamma rays from a single source, the Vela pulsar, than the total number detected by EGRET.Credit: NASA/EGRET Team (top) and NASA/DOE/Fermi LAT Collaboration ", "width": 1800, "height": 2083, "pixels": 3749400 } }, { "id": 270743, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 425393, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a012100/a012194/EGRET_LAT_compared_3600.jpg", "filename": "EGRET_LAT_compared_3600.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "These images encapsulate 25 years of progress in gamma-ray astrophysics. Top: The EGRET sky as seen in gamma rays above 100 MeV. Brighter colors indicate greater numbers of gamma rays. Its most prominent feature is the central plane of the galaxy, which runs across the middle of the map, a result of gamma rays produced when accelerated particles strike interstellar gas and starlight. The largest yellow spot on the right side of the plane is the Vela pulsar, one of five new gamma-ray pulsars EGRET discovered. The prominent reddish blob at top right is the blazar 3C 279. Bottom: The all-sky map produced by Fermi's Large Area Telescope (LAT), using data from Aug. 4, 2008, to Aug. 4, 2015, is sharper, more detailed and shows higher-energy gamma rays than EGRET's. In fact, the LAT has now captured more high-energy gamma rays from a single source, the Vela pulsar, than the total number detected by EGRET.Credit: NASA/EGRET Team (top) and NASA/DOE/Fermi LAT Collaboration ", "width": 1800, "height": 2083, "pixels": 3749400 } }, { "id": 270744, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 425394, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a012100/a012194/EGRET_LAT_compared_7200.jpg", "filename": "EGRET_LAT_compared_7200.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "These images encapsulate 25 years of progress in gamma-ray astrophysics. Top: The EGRET sky as seen in gamma rays above 100 MeV. Brighter colors indicate greater numbers of gamma rays. Its most prominent feature is the central plane of the galaxy, which runs across the middle of the map, a result of gamma rays produced when accelerated particles strike interstellar gas and starlight. The largest yellow spot on the right side of the plane is the Vela pulsar, one of five new gamma-ray pulsars EGRET discovered. The prominent reddish blob at top right is the blazar 3C 279. Bottom: The all-sky map produced by Fermi's Large Area Telescope (LAT), using data from Aug. 4, 2008, to Aug. 4, 2015, is sharper, more detailed and shows higher-energy gamma rays than EGRET's. In fact, the LAT has now captured more high-energy gamma rays from a single source, the Vela pulsar, than the total number detected by EGRET.Credit: NASA/EGRET Team (top) and NASA/DOE/Fermi LAT Collaboration ", "width": 7200, "height": 8331, "pixels": 59983200 } } ], "extra_data": {} }, { "id": 334336, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/12194/#media_group_334336", "widget": "Single image", "title": "", "caption": "", "description": "STS-37 Mission Specialist Jerry Ross smiles after successfully freeing Compton's jammed high-gain antenna, needed for sending science data back to Earth. The problem required Ross and Mission Specialist Jay Apt to perform NASA's first unscheduled spacewalk in nearly six years.
Credit: NASA/Steve Nagel
", "items": [ { "id": 270745, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 425395, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a012100/a012194/Jerry_Ross_STS-37_EVA_GRO_040791.jpg", "filename": "Jerry_Ross_STS-37_EVA_GRO_040791.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "STS-37 Mission Specialist Jerry Ross smiles after successfully freeing Compton's jammed high-gain antenna, needed for sending science data back to Earth. The problem required Ross and Mission Specialist Jay Apt to perform NASA's first unscheduled spacewalk in nearly six years. Credit: NASA/Steve Nagel", "width": 3729, "height": 2442, "pixels": 9106218 } } ], "extra_data": {} }, { "id": 334337, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/12194/#media_group_334337", "widget": "Single image", "title": "", "caption": "", "description": "The Compton Gamma Ray Observatory looms over STS-37 Mission Specialist Jay Apt as he works his way along the payload bay of space shuttle Atlantis during the mission's first spacewalk. The unscheduled EVA was needed to free Compton's high-gain antenna, which was stuck in its launch configuration.
Credit: NASA/Jerry Ross
", "items": [ { "id": 270746, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 425396, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a012100/a012194/Jay_Apt_STS-37_EVA_GRO_040791_STS037-51-021.jpg", "filename": "Jay_Apt_STS-37_EVA_GRO_040791_STS037-51-021.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "The Compton Gamma Ray Observatory looms over STS-37 Mission Specialist Jay Apt as he works his way along the payload bay of space shuttle Atlantis during the mission's first spacewalk. The unscheduled EVA was needed to free Compton's high-gain antenna, which was stuck in its launch configuration. Credit: NASA/Jerry Ross", "width": 3409, "height": 2254, "pixels": 7683886 } } ], "extra_data": {} }, { "id": 334338, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/12194/#media_group_334338", "widget": "Single image", "title": "", "caption": "", "description": "The insignia for STS-37, designed by crewmembers, depicts the space shuttle Atlantis and its primary payload, the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, rising and separating to form the Greek letter gamma.
Credit: NASA
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Dark purple colors represent the lowest densities, while yellow-white shows the highest. An audible tone and a visual frequency scale (at left) track the steady rise in the frequency of gravitational waves as the neutron stars close. When the objects merge at 42 seconds, the gravitational waves suddenly jump to frequencies of thousands of hertz and bounce between two primary tones (quasiperiodic oscillations, or QPOs). The presence of these signals in such simulations led to the search and discovery of similar phenomena in the light emitted by short gamma-ray bursts.Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and STAG Research Centre/Peter HammondComplete transcript available.Watch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel.Visual description:On a black background with a faint gray grid, two multicolored blobs representing merging neutron stars circle and close. The colors indicate density. Yellow-white indicates the highest densities, at the centers of the objects. The colors change to orange and red at their periphery, with purple colors representing matter torn from and swirling with the neutron stars as they orbit. The grid shrinks as the camera pulls back to capture a wider view of the merger. A pale orange display at left shows the changing frequency of the gravitational waves generated, which is also indicated by the rising tone. As the merger occurs, the screen shows a spinning yellow blob at center immersed in a large cloud of magneta and purple debris. || Merger_Simulation_Annotated_Still_2.jpg (1920x1080) [180.7 KB] || 14209_Hypermassive_QPO_Simulation_Zoom_YOUTUBE_1080.webm (1920x1080) [12.1 MB] || 14209_Hypermassive_QPO_Simulation_Zoom_YOUTUBE_1080.mp4 (1920x1080) [129.3 MB] || 14209_Hypermassive_QPO_Simulation_Zoom_YOUTUBE_BEST_1080.mp4 (1920x1080) [161.8 MB] || 14209_NS_Merger_QPO_SRT_Captions.en_US.srt [1.6 KB] || 14209_NS_Merger_QPO_SRT_Captions.en_US.vtt [1.6 KB] || 14209_Hypermassive_QPO_Simulation_Zoom_YOUTUBE_ProRes_1920x1080_2997.mov (1920x1080) [1.0 GB] || ", "release_date": "2023-01-09T17:10:00-05:00", "update_date": "2025-01-12T23:16:27.064142-05:00", "main_image": { "id": 369404, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a014200/a014209/Merger_Simulation_Still_1_print.jpg", "filename": "Merger_Simulation_Still_1_print.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "Full version of the simulation above, but without labels or other annotations.Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and STAG Research Centre/Peter HammondComplete transcript available.", "width": 1024, "height": 576, "pixels": 589824 } }, { "id": 14090, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/14090/", "page_type": "Produced Video", "title": "Fermi's 12-year View of the Gamma-ray Sky", "description": "This image shows the entire sky as seen by Fermi's Large Area Telescope. The most prominent feature is the bright, diffuse glow running along the middle of the map, which marks the central plane of our Milky Way galaxy. The gamma rays there are mostly produced when energetic particles accelerated in the shock waves of supernova remnants collide with gas atoms and even light between the stars. Many of the star-like features above and below the Milky Way plane are distant galaxies powered by supermassive black holes. Many of the bright sources along the plane are pulsars. The image was constructed from 12 years of observations using front-converting gamma rays with energies greater than 1 GeV. Hammer projection.Credit: NASA/DOE/Fermi LAT Collaboration || Fermi_144-month_Fermi_all-sky_hammer_2160x1080.png (2160x1080) [2.4 MB] || Fermi_144-month_Fermi_all-sky_hammer_2160x1080_print.jpg (1024x512) [306.6 KB] || Fermi_144-month_Fermi_all-sky_hammer_4000x2000.png (4000x2000) [7.0 MB] || Fermi_144-month_Fermi_all-sky_hammer_3600x1800.png (3600x1800) [4.9 MB] || ", "release_date": "2022-02-12T00:00:00-05:00", "update_date": "2022-02-07T14:45:20-05:00", "main_image": { "id": 373454, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a014000/a014090/Fermi_144_month_all-sky-cyl_3600x1800_print.jpg", "filename": "Fermi_144_month_all-sky-cyl_3600x1800_print.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "Same as above but in the equidistant cylindrical projection.Credit: NASA/DOE/Fermi LAT Collaboration", "width": 1024, "height": 512, "pixels": 524288 } }, { "id": 12022, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/12022/", "page_type": "Produced Video", "title": "Poster: Fermi's Gamma-ray Cosmos", "description": "This poster summarizes the career to date of NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. The central image is a map of the whole sky at gamma-ray wavelengths accumulated over six years of operations. The poster also discusses other Fermi findings, including a black widow pulsar, the Fermi Bubbles rising thousands of light-years out of our galaxy's center, a giant gamma-ray flare from the Crab Nebula, and many more.The poster is available in a variety of resolutions.Credit: NASA/Fermi/Sonoma State University/A. Simonnet || FskymaPoster15-2400_print.jpg (1024x658) [1.4 MB] || FskymaPoster15.jpg (11775x7575) [24.4 MB] || FskymaPoster15-half.jpg (5888x3788) [11.0 MB] || FskymaPoster15-3840.jpg (3840x2470) [6.3 MB] || FskymaPoster15-2400.jpg (2400x1544) [3.2 MB] || FskymaPoster15-2400_searchweb.png (320x180) [490.4 KB] || FskymaPoster15-2400_thm.png (80x40) [401.9 KB] || FskymaPoster15.tif (11775x7575) [340.8 MB] || ", "release_date": "2015-10-09T00:00:00-04:00", "update_date": "2023-05-03T13:49:15.086086-04:00", "main_image": { "id": 438795, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a012000/a012022/FskymaPoster15-2400_print.jpg", "filename": "FskymaPoster15-2400_print.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "This poster summarizes the career to date of NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. The central image is a map of the whole sky at gamma-ray wavelengths accumulated over six years of operations. The poster also discusses other Fermi findings, including a black widow pulsar, the Fermi Bubbles rising thousands of light-years out of our galaxy's center, a giant gamma-ray flare from the Crab Nebula, and many more.The poster is available in a variety of resolutions.Credit: NASA/Fermi/Sonoma State University/A. Simonnet", "width": 1024, "height": 658, "pixels": 673792 } }, { "id": 11947, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11947/", "page_type": "Produced Video", "title": "Fermi Spots a Record Flare from Blazar 3C 279", "description": "This visualization shows gamma rays detected during 3C 279's big flare by the LAT instrument on NASA's Fermi satellite. The flare is an abrupt shower of \"rain\" that trails off toward the end of the movie. Gamma rays are represented as expanding circles reminiscent of raindrops on water. Both the maximum size of the circle and its color represent the energy of the gamma ray, with white lowest and magenta highest. The highest-energy gamma ray the LAT detected during this flare, 52 billion electron volts, arrives near the end. In a second version of the visualization, a background map shows how the LAT detects 3C 279 and other sources by accumulating high-energy photons over time (brighter squares reflect higher numbers of gamma rays). The movie starts on June 14 and ends June 17. The area shown is a region of the sky five degrees on a side and centered on the position of 3C 279. Credit: NASA/DOE/Fermi LAT CollaborationWatch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel.For complete transcript, click here. || Fermi_Rain_Still2.jpg (1920x1080) [144.1 KB] || Fermi_Rain_Still2_print.jpg (1024x576) [51.2 KB] || Fermi_Rain_Still2_searchweb.png (320x180) [24.0 KB] || Fermi_Rain_Still2_thm.png (80x40) [5.0 KB] || Fermi_GammaRay_Rain_Final_1080.m4v (1920x1080) [81.8 MB] || WMV_Fermi_GammaRay_Rain_Final_1280x720.wmv (1280x720) [24.3 MB] || APPLE_TV_Fermi_GammaRay_Rain_Final_appletv.m4v (1280x720) [39.3 MB] || YOUTUBE_HQ_Fermi_GammaRay_Rain_Final_youtube_hq.webm (1280x720) [8.5 MB] || APPLE_TV_Fermi_GammaRay_Rain_Final_appletv_subtitles.m4v (1280x720) [39.3 MB] || Fermi_GammaRay_Rain_1080p.mov (1920x1080) [110.6 MB] || Fermi_GammaRay_Rain_Final_ProRes_1920x1080_2997.mov (1920x1080) [530.3 MB] || Fermi_GammaRay_Rain_SRT_Captions.en_US.srt [415 bytes] || Fermi_GammaRay_Rain_SRT_Captions.en_US.vtt [428 bytes] || ", "release_date": "2015-07-10T13:00:00-04:00", "update_date": "2023-05-03T13:49:36.229616-04:00", "main_image": { "id": 442045, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a011900/a011947/Fermi_Rain_Still2.jpg", "filename": "Fermi_Rain_Still2.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "This visualization shows gamma rays detected during 3C 279's big flare by the LAT instrument on NASA's Fermi satellite. The flare is an abrupt shower of \"rain\" that trails off toward the end of the movie. Gamma rays are represented as expanding circles reminiscent of raindrops on water. Both the maximum size of the circle and its color represent the energy of the gamma ray, with white lowest and magenta highest. The highest-energy gamma ray the LAT detected during this flare, 52 billion electron volts, arrives near the end. In a second version of the visualization, a background map shows how the LAT detects 3C 279 and other sources by accumulating high-energy photons over time (brighter squares reflect higher numbers of gamma rays). The movie starts on June 14 and ends June 17. The area shown is a region of the sky five degrees on a side and centered on the position of 3C 279. Credit: NASA/DOE/Fermi LAT CollaborationWatch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel.For complete transcript, click here.", "width": 1920, "height": 1080, "pixels": 2073600 } }, { "id": 11407, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11407/", "page_type": "Produced Video", "title": "Briefing Materials: NASA Missions Explore Record-Setting Cosmic Blast", "description": "On Thursday, Nov. 21, 2013, NASA held a media teleconference to discuss new findings related to a brilliant gamma-ray burst detected on April 27. Audio of the teleconference is available for download here.Related feature story: www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/nasa-sees-watershed-cosmic-blast-in-unique-detail/.Audio of Sylvia Zhu interview for a Science Podcast. Briefing Speakers Introduction: Paul Hertz, NASA Astrophysics Division Director, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.Charles Dermer, astrophysicist, Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, D.C.Thomas Vestrand, astrophysicist, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, N.M.Chryssa Kouveliotou, astrophysicist, NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala. Presenter 1: Charles Dermer || ", "release_date": "2013-11-21T14:00:00-05:00", "update_date": "2023-05-03T13:51:26.416266-04:00", "main_image": { "id": 460887, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a011400/a011407/Nebula-Jet_Still_1.jpg", "filename": "Nebula-Jet_Still_1.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "Gamma-ray bursts are the most luminous explosions in the cosmos. Astronomers think most occur when the core of a massive star runs out of nuclear fuel, collapses under its own weight, and forms a black hole. The black hole then drives jets of particles that drill all the way through the collapsing star at nearly the speed of light. Artist's rendering.Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center ", "width": 1920, "height": 1080, "pixels": 2073600 } }, { "id": 11205, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11205/", "page_type": "Produced Video", "title": "Fermi Traces a Celestial Spirograph", "description": "NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope orbits our planet every 95 minutes, building up increasingly deeper views of the universe with every circuit. Its wide-eyed Large Area Telescope (LAT) sweeps across the entire sky every three hours, capturing the highest-energy form of light — gamma rays — from sources across the universe. These range from supermassive black holes billions of light-years away to intriguing objects in our own galaxy, such as X-ray binaries, supernova remnants and pulsars. Now a Fermi scientist has transformed LAT data of a famous pulsar into a mesmerizing movie that visually encapsulates the spacecraft's complex motion. Pulsars are neutron stars, the crushed cores of massive suns that destroyed themselves when they ran out of fuel, collapsed and exploded. The blast simultaneously shattered the star and compressed its core into a body as small as a city yet more massive than the sun. One pulsar, called Vela, shines especially bright for Fermi. It spins 11 times a second and is the brightest persistent source of gamma rays the LAT sees. The movie renders Vela's position in a fisheye perspective, where the middle of the pattern corresponds to the central and most sensitive portion of the LAT's field of view. The edge of the pattern is 90 degrees away from the center and well beyond what scientists regard as the effective limit of the LAT's vision. The movie tracks both Vela's position relative to the center of the LAT's field of view and the instrument's exposure of the pulsar during the first 51 months of Fermi's mission, from Aug. 4, 2008, to Nov. 15, 2012. The pattern Vela traces reflects numerous motions of the spacecraft. The first is Fermi's 95-minute orbit around Earth, but there's another, subtler motion related to it. The orbit itself also rotates, a phenomenon called precession. Similar to the wobble of an unsteady top, Fermi's orbital plane makes a slow circuit around Earth every 54 days. In order to capture the entire sky every two orbits, scientists deliberately nod the LAT in a repeating pattern from one orbit to the next. It first looks north on one orbit, south on the next, and then north again. Every few weeks, the LAT deviates from this pattern to concentrate on particularly interesting targets, such as eruptions on the sun, brief but brilliant gamma-ray bursts associated with the birth of stellar-mass black holes, and outbursts from supermassive black holes in distant galaxies. The Vela movie captures one other Fermi motion. The spacecraft rolls to keep the sun from shining on and warming up the LAT's radiators, which regulate its temperature by bleeding excess heat into space.Watch this video on YouTube. || ", "release_date": "2013-02-27T10:00:00-05:00", "update_date": "2023-05-03T13:52:22.501509-04:00", "main_image": { "id": 468313, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a011200/a011205/Vela_Pulsar_1000.jpg", "filename": "Vela_Pulsar_1000.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "The Vela pulsar outlines a fascinating pattern in this movie showing 51 months of position and exposure data from Fermi's Large Area Telescope (LAT). The pattern reflects numerous motions of the spacecraft, including its orbit around Earth, the precession of its orbital plane, the manner in which the LAT nods north and south on alternate orbits, and more. The movie renders Vela's position in a fisheye perspective, where the middle of the pattern corresponds to the central and most sensitive portion of the LAT's field of view. The edge of the pattern is 90 degrees away from the center and well beyond what scientists regard as the effective limit of the LAT's vision. Better knowledge of how the LAT's sensitivity changes across its field of view helps Fermi scientists better understand both the instrument and the data it returns.Credit: NASA/DOE/Fermi LAT CollaborationFor complete transcript, click here.", "width": 1920, "height": 1080, "pixels": 2073600 } } ], "sources": [], "products": [], "newer_versions": [], "older_versions": [], "alternate_versions": [] }