{ "id": 40138, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/fermi-cosmic-rays/", "page_type": "Gallery", "title": "Fermi: Cosmic Rays", "description": "No description available.", "release_date": "2013-08-05T00:00:00-04:00", "update_date": "2024-04-22T00:00:00-04:00", "main_image": { "id": 468170, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a011200/a011209/Cas_A_Still_web.png", "filename": "Cas_A_Still_web.png", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "The husks of exploded stars produce some of the fastest particles in the cosmos. New findings by NASA's Fermi show that two supernova remnants accelerate protons to near the speed of light. The protons interact with nearby interstellar gas clouds, which then emit gamma rays. Short narrated video.For complete transcript, click here.", "width": 180, "height": 320, "pixels": 57600 }, "media_groups": [ { "id": 370732, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/fermi-cosmic-rays/#media_group_370732", "widget": "Tile gallery", "title": "Visuals", "caption": "", "description": "", "items": [ { "id": 425279, "type": "details_page", "extra_data": null, "instance": { "id": 14522, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/14522/", "page_type": "Produced Video", "title": "Fermi Sees No Gamma Rays from Nearby Supernova", "description": "Even when it doesn’t detect gamma rays, NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope helps astronomers learn more about the universe.Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight CenterMusic: \"Trial\" from Universal Production MusicWatch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel.Complete transcript available. || Fermi_Missing_GR_Still.jpg (1920x1080) [757.8 KB] || Fermi_Missing_GR_Still_searchweb.png (320x180) [86.6 KB] || Fermi_Missing_GR_Still_thm.png (80x40) [6.5 KB] || 14522_Fermi_Missing_GammaRays_Captions.en_US.srt [3.4 KB] || 14522_Fermi_Missing_GammaRays_Captions.en_US.vtt [3.2 KB] || 14522_Fermi_Missing_GammaRays_ProRes_1920x1080_2997.mov (1920x1080) [2.0 GB] || 14522_Fermi_Missing_GammaRays_Good.mp4 (1920x1080) [110.3 MB] || 14522_Fermi_Missing_GammaRays_Best.mp4 (1920x1080) [382.1 MB] || ", "release_date": "2024-04-16T12:00:00-04:00", "update_date": "2024-04-11T13:07:25.556484-04:00", "main_image": { "id": 1091055, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a014500/a014522/Fermi_Missing_GR_Still.jpg", "filename": "Fermi_Missing_GR_Still.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "Even when it doesn’t detect gamma rays, NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope helps astronomers learn more about the universe.\r\rCredit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center\rMusic: \"Trial\" from Universal Production MusicWatch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel.Complete transcript available.", "width": 1920, "height": 1080, "pixels": 2073600 } } }, { "id": 406069, "type": "details_page", "extra_data": null, "instance": { "id": 14170, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/14170/", "page_type": "Produced Video", "title": "NASA’s Fermi Confirms 'PeVatron' Supernova Remnant", "description": "Explore how astronomers located a supernova remnant that fires up protons to energies 10 times greater than the most powerful particle accelerator on Earth.Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight CenterMusic: New Philosopher by Laurent Dury; Universal Production MusicWatch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channelComplete transcript available. || 14170-Found__A_PeVatron.01978_print.jpg (1024x576) [61.1 KB] || 14170-_PeVatron.webm (1920x1080) [15.1 MB] || 14170-_PeVatron.mp4 (1920x1080) [136.6 MB] || 14170-PeVatron.en_US.vtt [2.3 KB] || 14170-PeVatron.mov (1920x1080) [1.8 GB] || ", "release_date": "2022-08-10T10:00:00-04:00", "update_date": "2023-08-21T16:26:08.339534-04:00", "main_image": { "id": 370729, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a014100/a014170/CR-GR_Path_Through_Galaxy_H264_Best_1280x720_59.94.01042_print.jpg", "filename": "CR-GR_Path_Through_Galaxy_H264_Best_1280x720_59.94.01042_print.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "Because cosmic ray protons, nuclei, and electrons carry electric charge, their direction changes as they wend their way through the galaxy's magnetic field. By the time the particles reach us, their paths can be completely scrambled, and astronomers cannot trace them back to their sources. Gamma rays — including those produced by cosmic rays interacting with interstellar matter — instead travel straight to us from their sources.Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center", "width": 1024, "height": 576, "pixels": 589824 } } }, { "id": 406070, "type": "details_page", "extra_data": null, "instance": { "id": 11209, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11209/", "page_type": "Produced Video", "title": "Fermi Proves Supernova Remnants Produce Cosmic Rays", "description": "A new study using observations from NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope reveals the first clear-cut evidence that the expanding debris of exploded stars produces some of the fastest-moving matter in the universe. This discovery is a major step toward meeting one of Fermi's primary mission goals.Cosmic rays are subatomic particles that move through space at nearly the speed of light. About 90 percent of them are protons, with the remainder consisting of electrons and atomic nuclei. In their journey across the galaxy, the electrically charged particles become deflected by magnetic fields. This scrambles their paths and makes it impossible to trace their origins directly.Through a variety of mechanisms, these speedy particles can lead to the emission of gamma rays, the most powerful form of light and a signal that travels to us directly from its sources.Two supernova remnants, known as IC 443 and W44, are expanding into cold, dense clouds of interstellar gas. This material emits gamma rays when struck by high-speed particles escaping the remnants.Scientists have been unable to ascertain which particle is responsible for this emission because cosmic-ray protons and electrons give rise to gamma rays with similar energies. Now, after analyzing four years of data, Fermi scientists see a gamma-ray feature from both remnants that, like a fingerprint, proves the culprits are protons.When cosmic-ray protons smash into normal protons, they produce a short-lived particle called a neutral pion. The pion quickly decays into a pair of gamma rays. This emission falls within a specific band of energies associated with the rest mass of the neutral pion, and it declines steeply toward lower energies. Detecting this low-end cutoff is clear proof that the gamma rays arise from decaying pions formed by protons accelerated within the supernova remnants.In 1949, the Fermi telescope's namesake, physicist Enrico Fermi, suggested that the highest-energy cosmic rays were accelerated in the magnetic fields of interstellar gas clouds. In the decades that followed, astronomers showed that supernova remnants were the galaxy's best candidate sites for this process.?A charged particle trapped in a supernova remnant's magnetic field moves randomly throughout it and occasionally crosses through the explosion's leading shock wave. Each round trip through the shock ramps up the particle's speed by about 1 percent. After many crossings, the particle obtains enough energy to break free and escapes into the galaxy as a newborn cosmic ray. The Fermi discovery builds on a strong hint of neutral pion decay in W44 observed by the Italian Space Agency's AGILE gamma-ray observatory and published in late 2011.Watch this video on YouTube. || ", "release_date": "2013-02-14T14:00:00-05:00", "update_date": "2023-05-03T13:52:23.664601-04:00", "main_image": { "id": 468169, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a011200/a011209/Cas_A_Still.jpg", "filename": "Cas_A_Still.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "The husks of exploded stars produce some of the fastest particles in the cosmos. New findings by NASA's Fermi show that two supernova remnants accelerate protons to near the speed of light. The protons interact with nearby interstellar gas clouds, which then emit gamma rays. Short narrated video.For complete transcript, click here.", "width": 1280, "height": 720, "pixels": 921600 } } }, { "id": 406071, "type": "details_page", "extra_data": null, "instance": { "id": 10566, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10566/", "page_type": "Produced Video", "title": "Fermi Explores Supernova Remnants", "description": "Fermi's Large Area Telescope (LAT) resolved gamma rays with energies a billion times greater than that of visible light from supernova remnants of different ages and in different environments. W51C, W44 and IC 443 are middle-aged remnants between 4,000 and 30,000 years old. The youngest remnant, Cassiopeia A, is only 330 years old and appears to the LAT as a point source. The images bring astronomers a step closer to understanding the source of some of the universe's most energetic particles — cosmic rays. The emissions are likely the result of accelerated protons interacting with nearby gas clouds, but other possibilities have not been eliminated. Astrophysicists believe that supernova remnants are the galaxy's best candidate sites for cosmic-ray acceleration. These observations provide further validation to the notion that supernova remnants act as enormous accelerators for cosmic particles. || ", "release_date": "2010-02-13T00:00:00-05:00", "update_date": "2023-05-03T13:54:22.321118-04:00", "main_image": { "id": 494255, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a010500/a010566/10566_SNRGeV_still_1280x720.jpg", "filename": "10566_SNRGeV_still_1280x720.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "Supernova Remnant video showing specific remnants and their appearance at different wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation.For Photoshop file, click here.", "width": 1280, "height": 720, "pixels": 921600 } } }, { "id": 406072, "type": "details_page", "extra_data": null, "instance": { "id": 10567, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10567/", "page_type": "Produced Video", "title": "How Cosmic-ray Protons Make Gamma rays", "description": "In the simplest and most common interaction, a cosmic-ray proton strikes another proton. The protons survive the collision, but their interaction creates an unstable particle — a pion — with only 14 percent the mass of a proton. In 10 millionths of a billionth of a second, the pion decays into a pair of gamma-ray photons. More complex scenarios occur when cosmic-ray protons strike nuclei containing greater numbers of particles. || ", "release_date": "2010-02-13T00:00:00-05:00", "update_date": "2023-05-03T13:54:22.407990-04:00", "main_image": { "id": 494226, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a010500/a010567/Pion_Simple_Still_1280x720.jpg", "filename": "Pion_Simple_Still_1280x720.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "Simple animation of proton-proton interaction resulting in netural pion that decays into two gamma rays.", "width": 1280, "height": 720, "pixels": 921600 } } }, { "id": 406073, "type": "details_page", "extra_data": null, "instance": { "id": 10878, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10878/", "page_type": "Produced Video", "title": "Gamma rays in the Heart of Cygnus", "description": "Located in the vicinity of the second-magnitude star Gamma Cygni, the Cygnus X star-forming region was discovered as a diffuse radio source by surveys in the 1950s. Now, a study using data from NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope finds that the tumult of star birth and death in Cygnus X has managed to corral fast-moving particles called cosmic rays.Cosmic rays are subatomic particles — mainly protons — that move through space at nearly the speed of light. In their journey across the galaxy, the particles are deflected by magnetic fields, which scramble their paths and make it impossible to backtrack the particles to their sources. Yet when cosmic rays collide with interstellar gas, they produce gamma rays — the most energetic and penetrating form of light — that travel to us straight from the source.The Cygnus X star factory is located about 4,500 light-years away and is believed to contain enough raw material to make two million stars like our sun. Within it are many young star clusters and several sprawling groups of related O- and B-type stars, called OB associations. One, called Cygnus OB2, contains 65 O stars — the most massive, luminous and hottest type — and nearly 500 B stars. These massive stars possess intense outflows that clear out cavities in the region's gas clouds. A tangled web of shockwaves associated with this process impedes the movement of cosmic rays throughout the region. Cosmic rays striking gas nuclei or photons from starlight produce the gamma rays Fermi detects.The release on NASA.gov is here. || ", "release_date": "2011-11-28T14:00:00-05:00", "update_date": "2024-06-23T23:16:47.862453-04:00", "main_image": { "id": 481009, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a010800/a010878/Cygnus-X_Still_1.jpg", "filename": "Cygnus-X_Still_1.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "Tour the Cygnus X star factory. This video opens with wide optical and infrared images of the constellation Cygnus, then zooms into the Cygnus X region using radio, infrared and gamma-ray images. Fermi LAT shows that gamma rays fill cavities in the star-forming clouds. The emission occurs when fast-moving cosmic rays strike hot gas and starlight.Watch this video on the NASAexplorer YouTube channel.", "width": 1280, "height": 720, "pixels": 921600 } } }, { "id": 406074, "type": "details_page", "extra_data": null, "instance": { "id": 11608, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11608/", "page_type": "Produced Video", "title": "Fermi Reveals Novae as a New Class of Gamma-Ray Sources", "description": "Observations of four stellar eruptions, called novae, by NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope firmly establish that these relatively common outbursts nearly always produce gamma rays, the most energetic form of light. A nova is a sudden, short-lived brightening of an otherwise inconspicuous star caused by a thermonuclear explosion on the surface of a white dwarf, a compact star not much larger than Earth. Novae occur because a stream of gas flowing from the star continually piles up into a layer on the white dwarf's surface. This layer eventually reaches a flash point and detonates in a runaway thermonuclear explosion. Each nova releases up to 100,000 times the annual energy output of our sun. Prior to Fermi, no one suspected these outbursts were capable of producing high-energy gamma rays. Such emission, with energies millions of times greater than visible light, usually is associated with far more powerful cosmic blasts.Fermi's Large Area Telescope (LAT) scored its first nova detection in March 2010 with an outburst of V407 Cygni. In this rare type of system, a white dwarf interacts with a red giant star more than a hundred times the size of our sun. Other members of this unusual stellar class have been observed to \"go nova\" every few decades.In 2012 and 2013, the LAT found three much more typical, or \"classical,\" novae: V339 Delphini in 2013 and V1324 Scorpii and V959 Monocerotis in 2012. The outbursts occurred in comparatively common systems where a white dwarf and a sun-like star orbit each other every few hours. Astronomers estimate that between 20 and 50 novae occur each year in our galaxy. Most go undetected, their visible light obscured by intervening dust and their gamma rays dimmed by distance. All of the gamma-ray novae found so far lie between 9,000 and 15,000 light-years away, which is relatively nearby compared to our galaxy's size.One explanation for the gamma-ray emission is that the blast creates multiple shock waves, which expand into space at slightly different speeds. Faster shocks could interact with slower ones, accelerating particles to near the speed of light. These particles ultimately could produce gamma rays. || ", "release_date": "2014-07-31T14:00:00-04:00", "update_date": "2023-05-03T13:50:41.381707-04:00", "main_image": { "id": 453314, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a011600/a011608/Fermi_novae_large_no_labels_searchweb.png", "filename": "Fermi_novae_large_no_labels_searchweb.png", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "Same as above but without labels.Credit: NASA/DOE/Fermi LAT Collaboration", "width": 320, "height": 180, "pixels": 57600 } } }, { "id": 406075, "type": "details_page", "extra_data": null, "instance": { "id": 10690, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10690/", "page_type": "Produced Video", "title": "How to make a gamma ray", "description": "A series of animations showing how gamma rays can be created through various particle interactions. || ", "release_date": "2010-11-09T13:00:00-05:00", "update_date": "2023-05-03T13:53:57.665308-04:00", "main_image": { "id": 489082, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a010600/a010690/Inverse_Compton278.jpg", "filename": "Inverse_Compton278.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "Inverse Compton scattering animation. An electron travelling at close the speed of light has a head-on collision with a lower-energy photon (from microwave to ultraviolet). The photon picks up energy from the electron and becomes a gamma ray.", "width": 1280, "height": 720, "pixels": 921600 } } }, { "id": 406076, "type": "details_page", "extra_data": null, "instance": { "id": 10507, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10507/", "page_type": "Produced Video", "title": "Gamma-Rays from High-Mass X-Ray Binaries", "description": "In its first year, NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope discovered GeV (billions of electron volts) intensity variations revealing orbital motion in high-mass X-ray binaries (HMXBs). These are systems where a compact companion, such as a neutron star or a black hole, rapidly orbits a hot, young, massive star. The first examples include LSI +61 303, which sports a 26-day orbital period, and LS 5039 (3.9 days). This animation shows such a system. When the compact object lies far from its host star, TeV (trillions of electron volts) gamma-rays (white) are seen by ground-based gamma-ray observatories. But, as the object plunges closer to the star, the TeV emission is quenched and GeV emission turns on. Interactions by accelerated particles from the compact source with gas encircling the star — or in some systems, the star's light itself — is thought to be responsible for this change. || ", "release_date": "2009-10-28T01:45:00-04:00", "update_date": "2023-05-03T13:54:30.663323-04:00", "main_image": { "id": 495510, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a010500/a010507/NS0001.00002_print.jpg", "filename": "NS0001.00002_print.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "Animation showing the star's orbit.", "width": 1024, "height": 576, "pixels": 589824 } } }, { "id": 406077, "type": "details_page", "extra_data": null, "instance": { "id": 20113, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/20113/", "page_type": "Animation", "title": "Gamma Ray Creation", "description": "Gamma rays are the highest-energy forms of light in the electromagnetic spectrum and they can have over a billion times the energy of the type of light visible to the human eye. Gamma rays can be created in several different ways: a high-energy particle can collide with another particle, a particle can collide and annihilate with its anti-particle, an element can undergo radioactive decay, or a charged particle can be accelerated. In this animation, we see a high-energy photon collide with a free electron, which causes the creation of a gamma-ray. || ", "release_date": "2007-09-07T00:00:00-04:00", "update_date": "2023-05-03T13:55:35.783777-04:00", "main_image": { "id": 507611, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a020000/a020100/a020113/electronsphot49300493_print.jpg", "filename": "electronsphot49300493_print.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "This animation shows a high-energy photon (blue coil) colliding with a free electron (red ball), which causes the release of a gamma-ray (purple flash). ", "width": 1024, "height": 576, "pixels": 589824 } } }, { "id": 406078, "type": "details_page", "extra_data": null, "instance": { "id": 11319, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11319/", "page_type": "Produced Video", "title": "Detecting Superfast Matter", "description": "Scientists always suspected supernova remnants could speed up cosmic rays, the streams of charged particles that exist throughout space. Now they have proof. NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope caught two supernova remnants—IC 443 and W44—red-handed as they accelerated cosmic rays to near the speed of light. As cosmic rays travel through the Milky Way galaxy, magnetic fields scramble their paths. By the time the particles reach Earth, the tracks leading back to their source are so complex they’re completely untraceable. So scientists came up with an indirect method for identifying the origins of these particles: observing gamma-ray emissions created by the interaction of accelerated cosmic rays with clouds of interstellar gas. Watch the video to learn more. || ", "release_date": "2013-08-06T00:00:00-04:00", "update_date": "2023-05-03T13:51:57.641272-04:00", "main_image": { "id": 463168, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a011300/a011319/cover-1024.jpg", "filename": "cover-1024.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "A NASA space telescope pinpoints a source of high-energy cosmic rays.", "width": 1024, "height": 576, "pixels": 589824 } } }, { "id": 406079, "type": "details_page", "extra_data": null, "instance": { "id": 11641, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11641/", "page_type": "Produced Video", "title": "Cosmic Blast", "description": "A nova is a sudden, short-lived explosion from a compact star not much larger than Earth. The outburst comes from a collapsed star known as a white dwarf, which circles so close to a normal star that a stream of gas flows between them. This gas piles up into a layer on the white dwarf's surface until it reaches a flash point and detonates in a runaway thermonuclear explosion. Astronomers estimate that between 20 and 50 novae occur each year in our galaxy, but despite their power most go undiscovered. NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has observed several nearby novae and found that each blast produces gamma rays, the most energetic form of light. Scientists think the gamma rays result from collisions among multiple shock waves that race from the site of the explosion in a rapidly expanding shell of debris. Watch the video to see an animation of a nova eruption. || ", "release_date": "2014-09-18T11:30:00-04:00", "update_date": "2023-05-03T13:50:33.418112-04:00", "main_image": { "id": 451449, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a011600/a011641/cy-1024_print.jpg", "filename": "cy-1024_print.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "A stunning amount of energy is unleashed when a star goes nova.", "width": 1024, "height": 576, "pixels": 589824 } } } ], "extra_data": {} } ] }