{ "count": 59, "next": null, "previous": null, "results": [ { "id": 14309, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/14309/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2023-03-15T11:00:00-04:00", "title": "Fermi Captures Dynamic Gamma-ray Sky", "description": "Watch a cosmic gamma-ray fireworks show in this animation using just a year of data from the Large Area Telescope (LAT) aboard NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. Each object’s magenta circle grows as it brightens and shrinks as it dims. The yellow circle represents the Sun following its apparent annual path across the sky. The animation shows a subset of the LAT gamma-ray records now available for more than 1,500 objects in a new, continually updated repository. Over 90% of these sources are a type of galaxy called a blazar, powered by the activity of a supermassive black hole.Credit: NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center/Daniel Kocevski || Fermi_LAT_LCR_Feb2022-Feb2023_Dark_ProRes_3840x2160.mov (3840x2160) [170.3 MB] || Fermi_LAT_LCR_Feb2022-Feb2023_Dark_1600.gif (1600x900) [6.5 MB] || Fermi_LAT_LCR_Feb2022-Feb2023_Dark_1050.gif (1050x590) [3.2 MB] || Fermi_LAT_LCR_Feb2022-Feb2023_Dark.gif (800x450) [2.1 MB] || Fermi_LAT_LCR_Feb2022-Feb2023_Dark_4k.mp4 (3840x2160) [12.1 MB] || Fermi_LAT_LCR_Feb2022-Feb2023_Dark_4k.webm (3840x2160) [1.9 MB] || ", "hits": 73 }, { "id": 13209, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/13209/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2019-12-19T12:00:00-05:00", "title": "NASA’s Fermi Finds Vast ‘Halo’ Around Nearby Pulsar", "description": "Astronomers using data from NASA’s Fermi mission have discovered a pulsar with a faint gamma-ray glow that spans a huge part of the sky. Watch to learn more.Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight CenterMusic: \"Insight\" from Universal Production MusicWatch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel.Complete transcript available. || Geminga_Still.jpg (1920x1080) [177.1 KB] || Geminga_Still_print.jpg (1024x576) [65.2 KB] || Geminga_Still_searchweb.png (320x180) [75.1 KB] || Geminga_Still_thm.png (80x40) [5.6 KB] || 13209_Fermi_Geminga_Halo_ProRes_1920x1080_2997.mov (1920x1080) [1.7 GB] || 13209_Fermi_Geminga_Halo_1080_Best.mp4 (1920x1080) [294.5 MB] || 13209_Fermi_Geminga_Halo_1080_Best.webm (1920x1080) [15.3 MB] || 13209_Fermi_Geminga_Halo_1080_Good.mp4 (1920x1080) [144.1 MB] || Fermi_Geminga_Halo_SRT_Captions.en_US.srt [1.7 KB] || Fermi_Geminga_Halo_SRT_Captions.en_US.vtt [1.7 KB] || ", "hits": 98 }, { "id": 12740, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/12740/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2017-10-16T10:00:00-04:00", "title": "Doomed Neutron Stars Create Blast of Light and Gravitational Waves", "description": "This animation captures phenomena observed over the course of nine days following the neutron star merger known as GW170817, detected on Aug. 17, 2017. They include gravitational waves (pale arcs), a near-light-speed jet that produced gamma rays (magenta), expanding debris from a kilonova that produced ultraviolet (violet), optical and infrared (blue-white to red) emission, and, once the jet directed toward us expanded into our view from Earth, X-rays (blue). Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/CI LabMusic: \"Exploding Skies\" from Killer TracksWatch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel.Complete transcript available. || Neutron_Star_Merger_Still_2_new_1080.png (1920x1080) [2.5 MB] || Neutron_Star_Merger_Still_2_new_1080.jpg (1920x1080) [167.3 KB] || Neutron_Star_Merger_Still_2_new_print.jpg (1024x576) [50.4 KB] || Neutron_Star_Merger_Still_2_new.png (3840x2160) [7.7 MB] || Neutron_Star_Merger_Still_2_new.jpg (3840x2160) [1.0 MB] || Neutron_Star_Merger_Still_2_new_thm.png (80x40) [4.4 KB] || Neutron_Star_Merger_Still_2_new_searchweb.png (320x180) [51.4 KB] || 12740_NS_Merger_Update_1080.m4v (1920x1080) [50.3 MB] || 12740_NS_Merger_Update_H264_1080.mp4 (1920x1080) [96.9 MB] || 12740_NS_Merger_Update_1080p.mov (1920x1080) [101.9 MB] || NS_Merger_SRT_Captions.en_US.srt [417 bytes] || NS_Merger_SRT_Captions.en_US.vtt [399 bytes] || 12740_NS_Merger_4k_Update.webm (3840x2160) [10.0 MB] || 12740_NS_Merger_4k_Update_H264.mp4 (3840x2160) [254.9 MB] || 12740_NS_Merger_4k_Update_H264.mov (3840x2160) [516.7 MB] || 12740_NS_Merger_4k_Update_ProRes_3840x2160_5994.mov (3840x2160) [5.1 GB] || 12740_NS_Merger_4k_Update_H264.hwshow [90 bytes] || ", "hits": 594 }, { "id": 12505, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/12505/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2017-02-21T14:00:00-05:00", "title": "Fermi Detects Gamma-ray Puzzle from M31", "description": "NASA's Fermi telescope has detected a gamma-ray excess at the center of the Andromeda Galaxy that's similar to a signature Fermi previously detected at the center of our own Milky Way. Watch to learn more. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Scott Wiessinger, producerMusic: \"Lost Time\" from Killer TracksWatch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel.Complete transcript available. || 12505_Fermi_M31_FINAL_appletv.00382_print.jpg (1024x576) [172.8 KB] || Fermi_M31_Still_searchweb.png (320x180) [92.6 KB] || Fermi_M31_Still_thm.png (80x40) [5.9 KB] || 12505_Fermi_M31_ProRes_1920x1080_2997.mov (1920x1080) [1.1 GB] || 12505_Fermi_M31_FINAL_youtube_hq.mov (1920x1080) [674.5 MB] || 12505_Fermi_M31_1080p.mov (1920x1080) [128.2 MB] || 12505_Fermi_M31_Good_1080.m4v (1920x1080) [85.0 MB] || 12505_Fermi_M31_FINAL_appletv.m4v (1280x720) [41.7 MB] || 12505_Fermi_M31_Compatible.m4v (960x540) [34.7 MB] || WMV_12505_Fermi_M31_FINAL_HD.wmv (1920x1080) [205.4 MB] || 12505_Fermi_M31_FINAL_appletv_subtitles.m4v (1280x720) [41.7 MB] || 12505_Fermi_M31_Compatible.webm (960x540) [9.0 MB] || 12505_Fermi_M31_SRT_Captions.en_US.srt [854 bytes] || 12505_Fermi_M31_SRT_Captions.en_US.vtt [867 bytes] || ", "hits": 77 }, { "id": 12218, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/12218/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2016-04-28T12:00:00-04:00", "title": "Fermi Helps Link a Cosmic Neutrino to a Blazar Outburst", "description": "NASA Goddard scientist Roopesh Ojha explains how Fermi and TANAMI uncovered the first plausible link between a blazar eruption and a neutrino from deep space. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight CenterWatch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel.Complete transcript available. || UniverseHD1845_print.jpg (1024x576) [135.3 KB] || UniverseHD1845_searchweb.png (320x180) [85.8 KB] || UniverseHD1845_web.png (180x320) [85.8 KB] || UniverseHD1845_thm.png (80x40) [6.3 KB] || UniverseHD1845.tif (1920x1080) [7.9 MB] || 12218_Fermi_Blazar_Neutrino_FINAL_appletv.webm (1280x720) [30.3 MB] || 12218_Fermi_Blazar_Neutrino_FINAL_appletv.m4v (1280x720) [138.0 MB] || 12218_Fermi_Blazar_Neutrino_FINAL_appletv_subtitles.m4v (1280x720) [138.1 MB] || 12218_Fermi_Blazar_Neutrino_H264_Good_1920x1080_2997.mov (1920x1080) [315.8 MB] || 12218_Fermi_Blazar_Neutrino.mp4 (1920x1080) [292.0 MB] || 12218_Fermi_Blazar_Neutrino_SRT_Captions.en_US.srt [4.8 KB] || 12218_Fermi_Blazar_Neutrino_SRT_Captions.en_US.vtt [4.8 KB] || 12218_Fermi_Blazar_Neutrino_FINAL_youtube_hq.mov (1920x1080) [1.3 GB] || 12218_Fermi_Blazar_Neutrino_FINAL_lowres.mp4 (480x272) [38.6 MB] || 12218_Fermi_Blazar_Neutrino_H264_Best_1920x1080_2997.mov (1920x1080) [2.3 GB] || 12218_Fermi_Blazar_Neutrino_ProRes_1920x1080_2997.mov (1920x1080) [3.6 GB] || ", "hits": 82 }, { "id": 12019, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/12019/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2016-01-07T14:15:00-05:00", "title": "NASA's Fermi Mission Sharpens its High-energy View", "description": "Tour the best view of the high-energy gamma-ray sky yet seen. This video highlights the plane of our galaxy and identifies objects producing gamma rays with energies greater than 1 TeV. Watch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel.For complete transcript, click here.Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center || 2FHL_Still_print.jpg (1024x576) [66.4 KB] || 2FHL_Still.png (3840x2160) [19.0 MB] || 2FHL_Still_searchweb.png (320x180) [55.9 KB] || 2FHL_Still_thm.png (80x40) [5.5 KB] || 12019_2FHL_H264_Good_1920x1080_2997.mov (1920x1080) [39.6 MB] || 12019_2FHL_H264_Good_1920x1080_2997.webm (1920x1080) [9.9 MB] || 12019_2FHL_3840x2160_FINAL_appletv.m4v (1280x720) [49.2 MB] || 12019_2FHL_3840x2160_FINAL_appletv_subtitles.m4v (1280x720) [49.3 MB] || 12019_2FHL_SRT_Captions.en_US.srt [330 bytes] || 12019_2FHL_SRT_Captions.en_US.vtt [343 bytes] || 12019_2FHL_3840x2160_2997_20mbps.mp4 (3840x2160) [190.4 MB] || 12019_2FHL_3840x2160_2997_40mbps.mp4 (3840x2160) [371.2 MB] || 12019_2FHL_3840x2160_FINAL_lowres.mp4 (480x272) [13.0 MB] || NASA_PODCAST_12019_2FHL_3840x2160_FINAL_ipod_sm.mp4 (320x240) [17.8 MB] || 12019_2FHL_ProRes_3840x2160_2997.mov (3840x2160) [3.8 GB] || ", "hits": 29 }, { "id": 11947, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11947/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2015-07-10T13:00:00-04:00", "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] || ", "hits": 67 }, { "id": 11713, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11713/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2014-10-21T14:00:00-04:00", "title": "Fermi Finds Hints of Starquakes in Magnetar 'Storm'", "description": "Astronomers analyzing data acquired by NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope during a rapid-fire \"storm\" of high-energy blasts in 2009 have discovered underlying signals related to seismic waves rippling throughout the host neutron star.The burst storm came from SGR J1550−5418, a neutron star with a super-strong magnetic field, also known as a magnetar. Located about 15,000 light-years away in the constellation Norma, the magnetar was quiet until October 2008, when it entered a period of eruptive activity that ended in April 2009. At times, the object produced hundreds of bursts in as little as 20 minutes, and the most intense explosions emitted more total energy than the sun does in 20 years. High-energy instruments on many spacecraft, including NASA's Swift and Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer, detected hundreds of gamma-ray and X-ray blasts.An examination of 263 individual bursts detected by Fermi's Gamma-ray Burst Monitor confirms vibrations in the frequency ranges previously only seen in rare giant flares from magnetars. Astronomers suspect these are twisting oscillations of the star where the crust and the core, bound by the magnetic field, vibrate together. In addition, a single burst showed an oscillation at a frequency never seen before and which scientists still do not understand.While there are many efforts to describe the interiors of neutron stars, scientists lack enough observational detail to choose between differing models. Neutron stars reach densities far beyond the reach of laboratories and their interiors may exceed the density of an atomic nucleus by as much as 10 times. Knowing more about how bursts shake up these stars will give theorists an important new window into understanding their internal structure.Magnetar Burst with Torsional Waves || ", "hits": 157 }, { "id": 11513, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11513/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2014-04-03T11:00:00-04:00", "title": "Fermi Hints at Dark Matter", "description": "Using public data from NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, independent scientists at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Harvard University, MIT and the University of Chicago have developed new maps showing that the galactic center produces more high-energy gamma rays than can be explained by known sources and that this excess emission is consistent with some forms of dark matter. No one knows the true nature of dark matter, but WIMPs, or Weakly Interacting Massive Particles, represent a leading class of candidates. Theorists have envisioned a wide range of WIMP types, some of which may either mutually annihilate or produce an intermediate, quickly decaying particle when they collide. Both of these pathways end with the production of gamma rays — the most energetic form of light — at energies within the detection range of Fermi's Large Area Telescope (LAT).The galactic center teems with gamma-ray sources, from interacting binary systems and isolated pulsars to supernova remnants and particles colliding with interstellar gas. It's also where astronomers expect to find the galaxy's highest density of dark matter, which only affects normal matter and radiation through its gravity. Large amounts of dark matter attract normal matter, forming a foundation upon which visible structures, like galaxies, are built. When the astronomers carefully subtract all known gamma-ray sources from LAT observations of the galactic center, a patch of leftover emission remains. This excess appears most prominent at energies between 1 and 3 billion electron volts (GeV) — roughly a billion times greater than that of visible light — and extends outward at least 5,000 light-years from the galactic center. The researchers find these features difficult to reconcile with other explanations proposed, such as undiscovered pulsars. The gamma-ray spectrum of the excess, its symmetry around the galactic center and its overall brightness, is, however, consistent with annihilations of dark matter particles in the mass range of 31 and 40 GeV. The scientists note that discoveries in other astronomical objects, such as dwarf galaxies, and experiments on Earth designed to directly detect dark matter particles will be needed to confirm this interpretation. For more information: Fermi Data Tantalize With New Clues To Dark Matter || ", "hits": 187 }, { "id": 11407, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11407/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2013-11-21T14:00:00-05:00", "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 || ", "hits": 109 }, { "id": 11311, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11311/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2013-08-21T13:00:00-04:00", "title": "Highlights of Fermi's First Five Years", "description": "This compilation summarizes the wide range of science from the first five years of NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. Fermi is a NASA observatory designed to reveal the high-energy universe in never-before-seen detail. Launched in 2008, Fermi continues to give astronomers a unique tool for exploring high-energy processes associated with solar flares, spinning neutron stars, outbursts from black holes, exploding stars, supernova remnants and energetic particles to gain insight into how the universe works. Fermi detects gamma rays, the most powerful form of light, with energies thousands to billions of times greater than the visible spectrum.The mission has discovered pulsars, proved that supernova remnants can accelerate particles to near the speed of light, monitored eruptions of black holes in distant galaxies, and found giant bubbles linked to the central black hole in our own galaxy. From blazars to thunderstorms, from dark matter to supernova remnants, catch the highlights of NASA Fermi’s first five years in space.View all the Fermi-related media from the last 5 years in the Fermi Gallery.For more information about Fermi, visit NASA's Fermi webpage. || ", "hits": 64 }, { "id": 11342, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11342/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2013-08-21T13:00:00-04:00", "title": "Fermi's Five-year View of the Gamma-ray Sky", "description": "This all-sky view shows how the sky appears at energies greater than 1 billion electron volts (GeV) according to five years of data from NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. (For comparison, the energy of visible light is between 2 and 3 electron volts.) The image contains 60 months of data from Fermi's Large Area Telescope; for better angular resolution, the map shows only gamma rays converted at the front of the instrument's tracker. Brighter colors indicate brighter gamma-ray sources. The map is shown in galactic coordinates, which places the midplane of our galaxy along the center. The five-year Fermi map is available in multiple resolutions below, along with additional plots containing reference information and identifying some of the brightest sources. || ", "hits": 152 }, { "id": 11205, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11205/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2013-02-27T10:00:00-05:00", "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. || ", "hits": 77 }, { "id": 11131, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11131/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2012-12-06T10:00:00-05:00", "title": "Fermi Improves Its Vision For Thunderstorm Gamma-ray Flashes", "description": "Thanks to improved data analysis techniques and a new operating mode, the Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM) aboard NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope is now 10 times better at catching the brief outbursts of high-energy light mysteriously produced above thunderstorms. The outbursts, known as terrestrial gamma-ray flashes (TGFs), last only a few thousandths of a second, but their gamma rays rank among the highest-energy light that naturally occurs on Earth. The enhanced GBM discovery rate helped scientists show most TGFs also generate a strong burst of radio waves, a finding that will change how scientists study this poorly understood phenomenon.Lightning emits a broad range of very low frequency (VLF) radio waves, often heard as pop-and-crackle static when listening to AM radio. The World Wide Lightning Location Network (WWLLN), a research collaboration operated by the University of Washington in Seattle, routinely detects these radio signals and uses them to pinpoint the location of lightning discharges anywhere on the globe to within about 12 miles (20 km).Scientists have known for a long time TGFs were linked to strong VLF bursts, but they interpreted these signals as originating from lightning strokes somehow associated with the gamma-ray emission.\"Instead, we've found when a strong radio burst occurs almost simultaneously with a TGF, the radio emission is coming from the TGF itself,\" said co-author Michael Briggs, a member of the GBM team. The researchers identified much weaker radio bursts that occur up to several thousandths of a second before or after a TGF. They interpret these signals as intracloud lightning strokes related to, but not created by, the gamma-ray flash. Scientists suspect TGFs arise from the strong electric fields near the tops of thunderstorms. Under certain conditions, the field becomes strong enough that it drives a high-speed upward avalanche of electrons, which give off gamma rays when they are deflected by air molecules. \"What's new here is that the same electron avalanche likely responsible for the gamma-ray emission also produces the VLF radio bursts, and this gives us a new window into understanding this phenomenon,\" said Joseph Dwyer, a physics professor at the Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne, Fla., and a member of the study team. Because the WWLLN radio positions are far more precise than those based on Fermi's orbit, scientists will develop a much clearer picture of where TGFs occur and perhaps which types of thunderstorms tend to produce them.Watch this video on YouTube. || ", "hits": 82 }, { "id": 11117, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11117/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2012-11-01T14:00:00-04:00", "title": "NASA's Fermi Explores the Early Universe", "description": "Astronomers using data from NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope have made the most accurate measurement of starlight in the universe and used it to establish the total amount of light from all of the stars that have ever shone, accomplishing a primary mission goal.Gamma rays are the most energetic form of light. Since Fermi's launch in 2008, its Large Area Telescope (LAT) observes the entire sky in high-energy gamma rays every three hours, creating the most detailed map of the universe ever known at these energies. The total sum of starlight in the cosmos is known to astronomers as the extragalactic background light (EBL). To gamma rays, the EBL functions as a kind of cosmic fog. Ajello and his team investigated the EBL by studying gamma rays from 150 blazars, or galaxies powered by black holes, that were strongly detected at energies greater than 3 billion electron volts (GeV), or more than a billion times the energy of visible light. As matter falls toward a galaxy's supermassive black hole, some of it is accelerated outward at almost the speed of light in jets pointed in opposite directions. When one of the jets happens to be aimed in the direction of Earth, the galaxy appears especially bright and is classified as a blazar.Gamma rays produced in blazar jets travel across billions of light-years to Earth. During their journey, the gamma rays pass through an increasing fog of visible and ultraviolet light emitted by stars that formed throughout the history of the universe. Occasionally, a gamma ray collides with starlight and transforms into a pair of particles — an electron and its antimatter counterpart, a positron. Once this occurs, the gamma ray light is lost. In effect, the process dampens the gamma-ray signal in much the same way as fog dims a distant lighthouse. From studies of nearby blazars, scientists have determined how many gamma rays should be emitted at different energies. More distant blazars show fewer gamma rays at higher energies — especially above 25 GeV — thanks to absorption by the cosmic fog. The farthest blazars are missing most of their higher-energy gamma rays.The researchers then determined the average gamma-ray attenuation across three distance ranges between 9.6 billion years ago and today. From this measurement, the scientists were able to estimate the fog's thickness. To account for the observations, the average stellar density in the cosmos is about 1.4 stars per 100 billion cubic light-years. To put this in another way, the average distance between stars in the universe is about 4,150 light-years.See the media briefing page here. || ", "hits": 123 }, { "id": 11130, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11130/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2012-11-01T14:00:00-04:00", "title": "Fermi Observation of Early Background Light Animation", "description": "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. || ", "hits": 114 }, { "id": 11000, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11000/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2012-06-11T13:00:00-04:00", "title": "NASA's Fermi Detects the Highest-Energy Light from a Solar Flare", "description": "During a powerful solar blast in March, NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope detected the highest-energy light ever associated with an eruption on the sun. The discovery heralds Fermi's new role as a solar observatory, a powerful new tool for understanding solar outbursts during the sun's maximum period of activity.\"For most of Fermi's four years in orbit, its Large Area Telescope (LAT) saw the sun as a faint, steady gamma-ray source thanks to the impacts of high-speed particles called cosmic rays,\" said Nicola Omodei, an astrophysicist at Stanford University in California. \"Now we're beginning to see what the sun itself can do.\"A solar flare is an explosive blast of light and charged particles. The powerful March 7 flare, which earned a classification of X5.4 based on the peak intensity of its X-rays, is the strongest eruption so far observed by Fermi's LAT. The flare produced such an outpouring of gamma rays — a form of light with even greater energy than X-rays — that the sun briefly became the brightest object in the gamma-ray sky.At the flare's peak, the LAT detected gamma rays with two billion times the energy of visible light, or about 4 billion electron volts (GeV), easily setting a record for the highest-energy light ever detected during or just after a solar flare. The flux of high-energy gamma rays, defined as those with energies beyond 100 million electron volts (MeV), was 1,000 times greater than the sun's steady output. The March 7 flare also is notable for the persistence of its gamma-ray emission. Fermi's LAT detected high-energy gamma rays for about 20 hours, two and a half times longer than any event on record. Additionally, the event marks the first time a greater-than-100-MeV gamma-ray source has been localized to the sun's disk, thanks to the LAT's keen angular resolution. Flares and other eruptive solar events produce gamma rays by accelerating charged particles, which then collide with matter in the sun's atmosphere and visible surface. For instance, interactions among protons result in short-lived subatomic particles called pions, which produce high-energy gamma rays when they decay. Nuclei excited by collisions with lower-energy ions give off characteristic gamma rays as they settle down. Accelerated electrons emit gamma rays as they collide with protons and atomic nuclei.Solar eruptions are now on the rise as the sun progresses toward the peak of its roughly 11-year-long activity cycle, now expected in mid-2013. || ", "hits": 2374 }, { "id": 10943, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10943/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2012-04-02T12:30:00-04:00", "title": "Fermi Observations of Dwarf Galaxies Provide New Insights on Dark Matter", "description": "There's more to the cosmos than meets the eye. About 80 percent of the matter in the universe is invisible to telescopes, yet its gravitational influence is manifest in the orbital speeds of stars around galaxies and in the motions of clusters of galaxies. Yet, despite decades of effort, no one knows what this \"dark matter\" really is. Many scientists think it's likely that the mystery will be solved with the discovery of new kinds of subatomic particles, types necessarily different from those composing atoms of the ordinary matter all around us. The search to detect and identify these particles is underway in experiments both around the globe and above it. Scientists working with data from NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope have looked for signals from some of these hypothetical particles by zeroing in on 10 small, faint galaxies that orbit our own. Although no signals have been detected, a novel analysis technique applied to two years of data from the observatory's Large Area Telescope (LAT) has essentially eliminated these particle candidates for the first time.WIMPs, or Weakly Interacting Massive Particles, represent a favored class of dark matter candidates. Some WIMPs may mutually annihilate when pairs of them interact, a process expected to produce gamma rays — the most energetic form of light — that the LAT is designed to detect. The team examined two years of LAT-detected gamma rays with energies in the range from 200 million to 100 billion electron volts (GeV) from 10 of the roughly two dozen dwarf galaxies known to orbit the Milky Way. Instead of analyzing the results for each galaxy separately, the scientists developed a statistical technique — they call it a \"joint likelihood analysis\" — that evaluates all of the galaxies at once without merging the data together. No gamma-ray signal consistent with the annihilations expected from four different types of commonly considered WIMP particles was found.For the first time, the results show that WIMP candidates within a specific range of masses and interaction rates cannot be dark matter. A paper detailing these results appeared in the Dec. 9, 2011, issue of Physical Review Letters. || ", "hits": 252 }, { "id": 20122, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/20122/", "result_type": "Animation", "release_date": "2012-02-25T00:00:00-05:00", "title": "Fermi's LAT Instrument", "description": "Fermi's Large Area Telescope (LAT) detects particles produced in a physical process known as pair production that epitomizes Einstein's famous equation, E=mc2. When a gamma ray, which is pure energy (E), slams into a layer of tungsten in one of the tracking towers that compose the LAT, it creates mass (m) in the form of a pair of subatomic particles, an electron and its antimatter counterpart, a positron. Several layers of high-precision silicon detectors track the particles as they move through the instrument. The direction of the incoming gamma ray is determined by projecting the particle paths backward. The particles travel through the trackers until they reach a separate detector called a calorimeter, which absorbs and measures their energies. The LAT produces gamma-ray images of astronomical objects, while also determining the energy of each detected gamma ray. || ", "hits": 124 }, { "id": 10887, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10887/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2012-01-10T10:00:00-05:00", "title": "NASA's Fermi Space Telescope Explores New Energy Extremes", "description": "After more than three years in space, NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope is extending its view of the high-energy sky into a range that to date has been largely unexplored territory. Now, the Fermi team has presented its first \"head count\" of sources in this new realm.Fermi's Large Area Telescope (LAT) scans the entire sky every three hours, continually deepening its portrait of the sky in gamma rays, the most extreme form of light. While the energy of visible light falls between about 2 and 3 electron volts, the LAT detects gamma rays with energies ranging from 20 million electron volts (MeV) to more than 300 billion (GeV).But at higher energies, gamma rays are few and far between. Above 10 GeV, even Fermi's LAT detects only one gamma ray every four months from some sources. The LAT's predecessor, the EGRET instrument on NASA's Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, detected only 1,500 individual gamma rays in this range during its nine-year lifetime, while the LAT detected more than 150,000 in just three years.Any object producing gamma rays at these energies is undergoing extraordinary astrophysical processes. More than half of the 496 sources in the new census are active galaxies, where matter falling into a supermassive black hole powers jets that spray out particles at nearly the speed of light. || ", "hits": 79 }, { "id": 10878, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10878/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2011-11-28T14:00:00-05:00", "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. || ", "hits": 155 }, { "id": 10858, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10858/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2011-11-03T14:00:00-04:00", "title": "Fermi Discovers Youngest Millisecond Pulsar", "description": "An international team of scientists using NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has discovered a surprisingly powerful millisecond pulsar that challenges existing theories about how these objects form. At the same time, another team has exploited improved analytical techniques to locate nine new gamma-ray pulsars in Fermi data.A pulsar, also called a neutron star, is the closest thing to a black hole astronomers can observe directly, crushing half a million times more mass than Earth into a sphere no larger than a city. This matter is so compressed that even a teaspoonful weighs as much as Mount Everest.Typically, millisecond pulsars are a billion years or more old, ages commensurate with a stellar lifetime. But in the Nov. 3 issue of Science, the Fermi team reveals a bright, energetic millisecond pulsar only 25 million years old.The object, named PSR J1823—3021A, lies within NGC 6624, a spherical assemblage of ancient stars called a globular cluster, one of about 160 similar objects that orbit our galaxy. The cluster is about 10 billion years old and lies about 27,000 light-years away toward the constellation Sagittarius.\"With this new batch of pulsars, Fermi now has detected more than 100, which is an exciting milestone when you consider that before Fermi's launch only seven of them were known to emit gamma rays,\" said Pablo Saz Parkinson, an astrophysicist at the Santa Cruz Institute for Particle Physics, University of California Santa Cruz. || ", "hits": 159 }, { "id": 10861, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10861/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2011-11-03T14:00:00-04:00", "title": "Fermi Pulsar Interactive Videos", "description": "These videos originally accompanied a Fermi Pulsar Interactive. That interactive is now available here. || ", "hits": 165 }, { "id": 10819, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10819/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2011-09-09T09:00:00-04:00", "title": "Fermi's Latest Gamma-ray Census Highlights Cosmic Mysteries", "description": "Every three hours, NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope scans the entire sky and deepens its portrait of the high-energy universe. Every year, the satellite's scientists reanalyze all of the data it has collected, exploiting updated analysis methods to tease out new sources. These relatively steady sources are in addition to the numerous transient events Fermi detects, such as gamma-ray bursts in the distant universe and flares from the sun.Earlier this year, the Fermi team released its second catalog of sources detected by the satellite's Large Area Telescope (LAT), producing an inventory of 1,873 objects shining with the highest-energy form of light. More than half of these sources are active galaxies whose supermassive black hole centers are causing the gamma-ray emissions. || ", "hits": 75 }, { "id": 10798, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10798/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2011-06-29T10:00:00-04:00", "title": "Stellar Odd Couple Makes Striking Flares", "description": "Every 3.4 years, pulsar B1259-63 dives twice through the gas disk surrounding the massive blue star it orbits. With each pass, it produces gamma rays. During the most recent event, NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope observed that the pulsar's gamma-ray flare was much more intense the second time it plunged through the disk. Astronomers don't yet know why.For the B1259 binary animation, go here. || ", "hits": 66 }, { "id": 10802, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10802/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2011-06-28T10:00:00-04:00", "title": "B1259-63 Binary Animation", "description": "Animation of the B1259-63 binary system with a pulsar that emits gamma rays as it passes through the gas disk around a blue giant.For a short narrated video and stills about this system, go here. || ", "hits": 54 }, { "id": 10708, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10708/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2011-01-12T12:00:00-05:00", "title": "A Flickering X-ray Candle", "description": "The Crab Nebula, created by a supernova seen nearly a thousand years ago, is one of the sky's most famous \"star wrecks.\" For decades, most astronomers have regarded it as the steadiest beacon at X-ray energies, but data from orbiting observatories show unexpected variations, showing astronomers their hard X-ray \"standard candle\" isn't as steady as they once thought. From 1999 to 2008, the Crab brightened and faded by as much as 3.5 percent a year, and since 2008, it has faded by 7 percent. The Gamma-ray Burst Monitor on NASA's Fermi satellite first detected the decline, and Fermi's Large Area Telescope also spotted two gamma-ray flares at even higher energies. Scientists think the X-rays reveal processes deep within the nebula, in a region powered by a rapidly spinning neutron star — the core of the star that blew up. But figuring out exactly where the Crab's X-rays are changing over the long term will require a new generation of X-ray telescopes. || ", "hits": 59 }, { "id": 10706, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10706/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2011-01-10T16:00:00-05:00", "title": "Terrestrial Gamma-ray Flashes Create Antimatter", "description": "NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has detected beams of antimatter launched by thunderstorms. Acting like enormous particle accelerators, the storms can emit gamma-ray flashes, called TGFs, and high-energy electrons and positrons. Scientists now think that most TGFs produce particle beams and antimatter.For additional animations showing bremsstrahlung and pair production gamma ray reactions, go here.For more visualizations showing Fermi's TGF detections, go to#3747, #3748, and #3756.For animations of the Fermi spacecraft and matter/antimatter, go to#10707 and #10651. || ", "hits": 248 }, { "id": 10688, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10688/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2010-11-09T13:00:00-05:00", "title": "Fermi discovers giant gamma-ray bubbles in the Milky Way", "description": "Using data from NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, scientists have recently discovered a gigantic, mysterious structure in our galaxy. This never-before-seen feature looks like a pair of bubbles extending above and below our galaxy's center. But these enormous gamma-ray emitting lobes aren't immediately visible in the Fermi all-sky map. However, by processing the data, a group of scientists was able to bring these unexpected structures into sharp relief. Each lobe is 25,000 light-years tall and the whole structure may be only a few million years old. Within the bubbles, extremely energetic electrons are interacting with lower-energy light to create gamma rays, but right now, no one knows the source of these electrons.Are the bubbles remnants of a massive burst of star formation? Leftovers from an eruption by the supermassive black hole at our galaxy's center? Or or did these forces work in tandem to produce them? Scientists aren't sure yet, but the more they learn about this amazing structure, the better we'll understand the Milky Way.For an animation that shows the inverse Compton scattering responsible for the gamma rays, go to #10690.For an animation that shows an artist's interpretation of the Milky Way galaxy and the lobes, go to#10691. || ", "hits": 304 }, { "id": 10566, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10566/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2010-02-13T00:00:00-05:00", "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. || ", "hits": 70 }, { "id": 10520, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10520/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2010-01-05T14:30:00-05:00", "title": "New Millisecond Radio Pulsars Found in Fermi LAT Unidentified Sources", "description": "Radio searches netted 17 new millisecond pulsars by examining the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope's list of unidentified sources. Colored circles indicate the positions of the new pulsars on the Fermi one-year all-sky map. || ", "hits": 48 }, { "id": 10540, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10540/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2009-12-09T10:00:00-05:00", "title": "Brightest-ever Flare From Blazar 3C 454.3", "description": "The blazar 3C 454.3, which lies 7.2 billion light-years away in the constellation Pegasus, underwent a series of intense flares in the fall of 2009. By December, it had become the brightest persistent gamma-ray source in the sky — more than ten times brighter than it was in the summer. These all-sky images, which record the numbers of high-energy gamma-rays captured by Fermi's Large Area Telescope on Dec. 3 and Nov. 18, clearly show the change. Typically, the Vela pulsar, which lies only 1,000 light-years away, is the sky's brightest persistent source of gamma rays. Blazar 3C 454.3, which is millions of times farther away, rose to twice Vela's brightness. Astronomers suspect the activity is driven by some change within the galaxy's black-hole-powered particle jet, but they do not understand the details. || ", "hits": 89 }, { "id": 10531, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10531/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2009-11-26T12:59:00-05:00", "title": "Fermi telescope detects gamma-rays from Cygnus X-3", "description": "In Cygnus X-3, a hot, massive star is paired with a compact object — either a neutron star or a black hole — that blasts twin radio-emitting jets of matter into space at more than half the speed of light. Astronomers call these systems microquasars. Their properties — strong emission across a broad range of wavelengths, rapid brightness changes, and radio jets — resemble miniature versions of distant galaxies (called quasars and blazars) whose emissions are thought to be powered by enormous black holes. Cygnus X-3, first detected in 1966 as among the sky's strongest X-ray sources, was also one of the earliest claimed gamma-ray sources. Efforts to confirm those observations helped spur the development of improved gamma-ray detectors, a legacy culminating in the Large Area Telescope (LAT) aboard NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. || ", "hits": 136 }, { "id": 10489, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10489/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2009-10-28T01:45:00-04:00", "title": "Gamma-ray Burst Photon Delay as Expected by Quantum Gravity", "description": "In this illustration, one photon (purple) carries a million times the energy of another (yellow). Some theorists predict travel delays for higher-energy photons, which interact more strongly with the proposed frothy nature of space-time. Yet Fermi data on two photons from a gamma-ray burst fail to show this effect, eliminating some approaches to a new theory of gravity. || ", "hits": 193 }, { "id": 10505, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10505/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2009-10-28T01:45:00-04:00", "title": "Blazars at Galactic North Pole, Seen in Fermi's First Year of Observations", "description": "Fermi has detected more than 1,000 gamma-ray sources. Half are associated with active galaxies called blazars. This movie shows one year of blazar activity, starting on Aug. 4, 2008, around the galactic north pole. This region includes the constellations Ursa Major, Virgo, Leo, Boötes, and Coma Berenices. || ", "hits": 30 }, { "id": 10507, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10507/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2009-10-28T01:45:00-04:00", "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. || ", "hits": 58 }, { "id": 10508, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10508/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2009-10-28T01:45:00-04:00", "title": "Fermi All-Sky First Year Progress", "description": "This view of the gamma-ray sky constructed from one year of Fermi LAT observations is the best view of the extreme universe to date. The map shows the rate at which the LAT detects gamma rays with energies above 300 million electron volts — about 120 million times the energy of visible light — from different sky directions. Brighter colors equal higher rates. || ", "hits": 43 }, { "id": 10510, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10510/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2009-10-28T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "Einstein's Cosmic Speed Limit", "description": "In its first year of operations, NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has mapped the entire sky with unprecedented resolution and sensitivity in gamma-rays, the highest-energy form of light. On May 10, 2009 a pair of gamma-ray photons reached Fermi only 900 milliseconds apart after traveling for 7 billion years. Fermi's measurement gives us rare experimental evidence that space-time is smooth as Einstein predicted, and has shut the door on several approaches to gravity where space-time is foamy enough to interfere strongly with light.Watch this video on the NASAexplorer YouTube channel.For complete transcript, click here. || Einsteins_Cosmic_Speed_Limit_512x288_web.png (320x180) [223.5 KB] || Einsteins_Cosmic_Speed_Limit_512x288_thm.png (80x40) [16.5 KB] || Einsteins_Cosmic_Speed_Limit_Thumbnail.jpg (346x260) [107.4 KB] || Einsteins_Cosmic_Speed_Limit_AppleTV.webmhd.webm (960x540) [82.4 MB] || Einsteins_Cosmic_Speed_Limit_AppleTV.m4v (960x540) [208.4 MB] || Einsteins_Cosmic_Speed_Limit_1280x720_H264.mov (1280x720) [433.5 MB] || Einsteins_Cosmic_Speed_Limit_1280x720_ProRes.mov (1280x720) [5.2 GB] || Einsteins_Cosmic_Speed_Limit_640x480_ipod.m4v (640x360) [68.6 MB] || Einsteins_Cosmic_Speed_Limit_512x288.mpg (512x288) [38.3 MB] || Einsteins_Cosmic_Speed_Limit_320x240.mp4 (320x180) [26.5 MB] || GSFC_20091029_EinsteinsCosmicSpeedLimit.wmv (346x236) [38.4 MB] || ", "hits": 129 }, { "id": 10407, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10407/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2009-04-03T14:00:00-04:00", "title": "Fermi All-sky Movie Shows Flaring, Fading Blazars", "description": "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. || ", "hits": 46 }, { "id": 10344, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10344/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2009-02-19T14:00:00-05:00", "title": "Fermi LAT movie of Gamma-ray Burst (GRB) 080916C", "description": "This movie compresses about 8 minutes of Fermi LAT observations of GRB 080916C into 6 seconds. Colored dots represent gamma rays of different energies. Visible light has energy between about 2 and 3 electron volts (eV). The blue dots represent lower-energy gamma rays (less than 100 million eV); green, moderate energies (100 million to 1 billion eV); and red, the highest energies (more than 1 billion eV). || ", "hits": 204 }, { "id": 10357, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10357/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2008-12-21T23:00:00-05:00", "title": "GLASTcast Episode 6: 2008 Mission Update", "description": "The GLAST mission launched on June 11, 2008 and has been returning remarkable and revolutionary discoveries ever since. Recently renamed to the Fermi Space Telescope, after Nobel Prize winner Enrico Fermi, the mission is expected to discover dozens of new pulsars within its first year alone. The telescope is also giving us new insights into gamma-ray bursts and the massive jets that erupt from distant galaxies. Stay tuned — the mission of NASA's Fermi telescope is just getting started. || ", "hits": 29 }, { "id": 10347, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10347/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2008-08-26T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "GLAST First Light All Sky Map", "description": "NASA's newest observatory, the Gamma-Ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST), has begun its mission of exploring the universe in high-energy gamma rays. The spacecraft and its revolutionary instruments passed their orbital checkout with flying colors. NASA announced today that GLAST has been renamed the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. The new name honors Prof. Enrico Fermi (1901 - 1954), a pioneer in high-energy physics. Scientists expect Fermi will discover many new pulsars in our own galaxy, reveal powerful processes near supermassive black holes at the cores of thousands of active galaxies across, and enable a search for signs of new physical laws. || ", "hits": 95 }, { "id": 10345, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10345/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2008-08-25T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "GLASTcast in HD for Apple TV and iTunes", "description": "The Universe is home to numerous exotic and beautiful phenomena, some of which can generate inconceivable amounts of energy. GLAST will open a new window on this high-energy world. With GLAST, astronomers will have a superior tool to study how black holes, notorious for pulling matter in, can accelerate jets of gas outward at fantastic speeds. Physicists will be able to search for signals of new fundamental processes that are inaccessible in ground-based accelerators and observatories. GLAST's spectacular high-energy gamma-ray 'eyeglasses' will reveal hidden wonders, opening our minds to new possibilities and discoveries, expanding our understanding of the Universe and our place in it. || ", "hits": 33 }, { "id": 10323, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10323/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2008-08-05T12:00:00-04:00", "title": "GLASTCast Episode 3 - Swift and GLAST", "description": "NASA's GLAST mission is an astrophysics and particle physics partnership, developed in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy, along with important contributions from academic institutions and partners in France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Sweden, and the U.S. What's the difference between the Swift and GLAST satellites? Both missions look at gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), but in different ways. Swift can rapidly and precisely determine the locations of GRBs and observe their afterglows at X-ray, ultraviolet, and optical wavelengths. GLAST will provide exquisite observations of the burst over the gamma ray spectrum, giving scientists their first complete view of the total energy released in these extraordinary events. Beyond GRB science, GLAST is a multipurpose observatory that will study a broad range of cosmic phenomena. Swift is also a multipurpose observatory, but was built primarily to study GRBs. Interviews with (in order of appearance): David Thompson - GLAST Deputy Project Scientist, NASA Goddard Charles \"Chip\" Meegan - GLAST Burst Monitor (GBM) Principal Investigator, NASA Marshall Lynn Cominsky - GLAST Astrophysicist and Education and Public Outreach Lead, Sonoma State University Neil Gehrels - GLAST Deputy Project Scientist, NASA Goddard Steve Ritz - GLAST Project Scientist, NASA Goddard Alan Marscher - Professor of Astronomy, Boston University || ", "hits": 30 }, { "id": 10324, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10324/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2008-08-05T12:00:00-04:00", "title": "GLASTcast Episode 4: Launching a Spacecraft", "description": "NASA's GLAST mission is an astrophysics and particle physics partnership, developed in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy, along with important contributions from academic institutions and partners in France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Sweden, and the U.S. The GLAST satellite will launch in 2008 from Cape Canaveral Air Station, on Florida's east coast. GLAST will be carried on a Delta II Heavy launch vehicle, with 9 solid rocket boosters. GLAST is the first imaging gamma-ray observatory to survey the entire sky every day and with high sensitivity. It will give scientists a unique opportunity to learn about the ever-changing Universe at extreme energies. Interviews with (in order of appearance): Peter Michaelson - Large Area Telescope (LAT) Principal Investigator, Stanford University Lynn Cominsky - GLAST Astrophysicist and Education and Public Outreach Lead, Sonoma State University David Thompson - GLAST Deputy Project Scientist, NASA Goddard Kevin Grady - GLAST Project Manager, NASA Goddard Neil Johnson - Large Area Telescope (LAT) Deputy Principal Investigator, US Naval Research Lab Jonathan Ormes - Large Area Telescope (LAT) Senior Scientist Advisory Committee, University of Denver Charles \"Chip\" Meegan - GLAST Burst Monitor (GBM) Principal Investigator, NASA Marshall Luke Drury - Professor of Astronomy, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies Per Carlson - Professor of Elementary Particle Physics, Manne Siegbahn Laboratory Isabelle Grenier - Principal Investigator of the GLAST French contribution, French Atomic Energy Commission || ", "hits": 24 }, { "id": 10325, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10325/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2008-08-05T01:00:00-04:00", "title": "GLASTcast Episode 5: Meet the U.S. Team", "description": "NASA's GLAST mission is an astrophysics and particle physics partnership, developed in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy, along with important contributions from academic institutions and partners in France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Sweden, and the U.S. This video introduces only a small fraction of the hundreds of U.S. and international GLAST team members. To meet more of the team go to: www.nasa.gov/glast. Interviews with (in order of appearance): Bill Atwood - GLAST Co-Creator, Santa Cruz Institute of Particle Physics, University of California, Santa Cruz David Thompson - GLAST Deputy Project Scientist, NASA Goddard Julie McEnery - GLAST Deputy Project Scientist, NASA Goddard Steve Ritz - GLAST Project Scientist, NASA Goddard Neil Gehrels - GLAST Deputy Project Scientist, NASA Goddard Peter Michaelson - Large Area Telescope (LAT) Principal Investigator, Stanford University Kevin Grady - GLAST Project Manager, NASA Goddard Charles \"Chip\" Meegan - GLAST Burst Monitor (GBM) Principal Investigator, NASA Marshall || ", "hits": 19 }, { "id": 10322, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10322/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2008-07-30T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "GLAST Soundbites", "description": "Selected soundbites with Steve Ritz, GLAST Project Scientist; Peter Michelson, LAT Principal Investigator; Charles 'Chip' Meegan, GBM Principal Investigator. NASA's GLAST mission is an astrophysics partnership, developed in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy along with important contributions from academic institutions and partners in France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Sweden, and the U.S. || ", "hits": 21 }, { "id": 10250, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10250/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2008-06-03T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "GLASTcast for iTunes", "description": "The GLAST mission launched on June 11, 2008 and has been returning remarkable and revolutionary discoveries ever since. Recently renamed to the Fermi Space Telescope, after Nobel Prize winner Enrico Fermi, the mission is expected to discover dozens of new pulsars within the first year alone. The telescope is also giving us new insights into gamma-ray bursts and the massive jets that erupt from distant galaxies. Stay tuned — the mission of NASA's Fermi telescope is just getting started. || ", "hits": 32 }, { "id": 10251, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10251/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2008-05-31T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "GLAST Prelude, for Brass Quintet, Op.12", "description": "NASA's GLAST mission is an astrophysics and particle physics partnership, developed in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy, along with important contributions from academic institiutions and partners in France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Sweden, and the U.S. Music composed by Nolan Gasser, © 2008 Music performed by the American Brass Quintet || ", "hits": 23 }, { "id": 10247, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10247/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2008-05-29T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "GLASTcast Episode 1: What is GLAST?", "description": "NASA's GLAST mission is an astrophysics and particle physics partnership, developed in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy, along with important contributions from academic institutions and partners in France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Sweden, and the U.S. The Universe is home to numerous exotic and beautiful phenomena, some of which can generate inconceivable amounts of energy. GLAST will open a new window on this high-energy world. With GLAST, astronomers will have a superior tool to study how black holes, notorious for pulling matter in, can accelerate jets of gas outward at fantastic speeds. Physicists will be able to search for signals of new fundamental processes that are inaccessible in ground-based accelerators and observatories. GLAST's spectacular high-energy gamma-ray \"eyeglasses\" will reveal hidden wonders, opening our minds to new possibilities and discoveries, expanding our understanding of the Universe and our place in it. Interviews with (in order of appearance): Steve Ritz - GLAST Project Scientist, NASA Goddard Peter Michaelson - Large Area Telescope (LAT) Principal Investigator, Stanford University Diego Torres - Large Area Telescope (LAT) Scientist, University of Barcelona Neil Gehrels - GLAST Deputy Project Scientist, NASA Goddard David Thompson - GLAST Deputy Project Scientist, NASA Goddard Luke Drury - Professor of Astronomy, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies Valerie Connaughton - GLAST Burst Monitor (GBM) Team, NASA Marshall/University of Alabama Martin Pohl - GLAST Interdisciplinary Scientist, Iowa State University Per Carlson - Professor of Elementary Particle Physics, Manne Siegbahn Laboratory Charles \"Chip\" Meegan - GLAST Burst Monitor (GBM) Principal Investigator, NASA Marshall Alan Marscher - Professor of Astronomy, Boston University Julie McEnery - GLAST Deputy Project Scientist, NASA Goddard || ", "hits": 17 }, { "id": 10248, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10248/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2008-05-23T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "GLASTcast Episode 2: What are Gamma Rays?", "description": "NASA's GLAST mission is an astrophysics and particle physics partnership, developed in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy, along with important contributions from academic institutions and partners in France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Sweden, and the U.S. Somewhere out in the vast depths of space, a giant star explodes with the power of millions of suns. As the star blows up, a black hole forms at its center. The black hole blows two blowtorches in opposite directions, in narrow jets of gamma rays. NASA's Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope, or GLAST, will catch about 200 of these explosions, known as gamma-ray bursts, each year. GLAST's detailed observations may give astronomers the clues they need to unravel the mystery of what exactly produces these gamma-ray bursts, which are the brightest explosions in the universe since the Big Bang. Interviews with (in order of appearance): Phil Plait - Astronomer, Bad Astronomy David Thompson - GLAST Deputy Project Scientist, NASA Goddard Valerie Connaughton - GLAST Burst Monitor (GBM) Team, NASA Marshall/University of Alabama Neil Gehrels - GLAST Deputy Project Scientist, NASA Goddard Isabelle Grenier - Principal Investigator of the GLAST French contribution, French Atomic Energy Commission Peter Michaelson - Large Area Telescope (LAT) Principal Investigator, Stanford University Charles \"Chip\" Meegan - GLAST Burst Monitor (GBM) Principal Investigator, NASA Marshall Martin Pohl - GLAST Interdisciplinary Scientist, Iowa State University Steve Ritz - GLAST Project Scientist, NASA Goddard || ", "hits": 19 }, { "id": 10165, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10165/", "result_type": "B-Roll", "release_date": "2007-09-17T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "GLAST LAT Testing - B-Roll", "description": "The GLAST LAT (Large Area Telescope) was tested extensively during the summer of 2006 at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC. The NRL also contributed to the GLAST project by managing the construction of the LAT Calorimeter. || ", "hits": 21 }, { "id": 10169, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10169/", "result_type": "B-Roll", "release_date": "2007-09-17T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "GLAST LAT Integration - B-Roll", "description": "In fall of 2006, the LAT was shipped to the General Dynamics facility in Arizona for integration onto the spacecraft bus. The General Dynamics spacecraft bus provides the power, data, and pointing resources that will enable the LAT to perform its survey of the Universe. Subsequent to the mechanical integration, the command, data, and power interfaces between the instrument and the spacecraft were tested rigorously to insure the compatibility of this spaceflight hardware that had been manufactured all around the globe. || ", "hits": 17 }, { "id": 10172, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10172/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2007-09-17T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "GLAST Promo Video", "description": "NASA's Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST) is a powerful space observatory that will open a wide window on the universe. Gamma rays are the highest-energy form of light and the gamma-ray sky is spectacularly different from the one we perceive with our own eyes. With a huge leap in all key capabilities, GLAST data will enable scientists to answer persistent questions across a broad range of topics, including supermassive black-hole systems, pulsars, the origina of cosmic rays, and searches for signals new physics. NASA's GLAST mission is an astrophysics and particle physics partnership, developed in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy, along with important contributions from academic institutions and partners in France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Sweden, and the U.S. || ", "hits": 32 }, { "id": 20119, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/20119/", "result_type": "Animation", "release_date": "2007-09-14T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "The GLAST (Fermi) Spacecraft in Orbit", "description": "GLAST will be launched into a circular orbit around the Earth at an altitude of about 560 km (350 miles). At that altitude, the observatory will circle Earth every 90 minutes. In sky-survey mode, GLAST will be able to view the entire sky in just two orbits, or about 3 hours. Because gamma rays in the GLAST's energy band are unable to penetrate the Earth's atmostphere, it is essential that GLAST perform its observations from space. || ", "hits": 56 }, { "id": 20120, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/20120/", "result_type": "Animation", "release_date": "2007-09-14T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "360 Degrees of GLAST", "description": "GLAST will carry two instruments: the Large Area Telescope (LAT) and the GLAST Burst Monitor (GBM). The LAT is GLAST's primary instrument and consists of four components: the Tracker, the Calorimeter, the Anticoincidence Detector (ACD), and the Data Acquisition System (DAQ). These instrument components working together will detect gamma rays by using Einstein's famous equation (E=mc(squared) in a technique known as pair production. The GLAST Burst Monitor is a complementary instrument and consists of low-energy detectors, high-energy detectors, and data processing unit. The GBM can see all directions at once, except for the area where Earth blocks its view. When the GBM detects a bright gamma-ray burst, it immediately sends a signal to the LAT to observe that area of the sky. || ", "hits": 31 }, { "id": 20121, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/20121/", "result_type": "Animation", "release_date": "2007-09-14T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "GLAST's New Window on the Universe", "description": "The Universe is home to numerous extoic and beautiful phenomena, some of which can generate inconceiveable amounts of energy. GLAST (Gamma-ray Large Area Telescope) will open this high-energy world as the first imaging gamma-ray observatory to survey the entire sky every day and with high sensitivity. Astronomers will gain a superior tool to study how black holes, notorious for pulling matter in, can accelerate jets of gas outward at fantastic speeds. Physicists will be able to search for signals of new fundamental processes that are inaccessable in ground-based accelerators and observatories. And scientists will have a unique opportunity to learn about the every-changing Universe at extreme energies. || ", "hits": 28 }, { "id": 20123, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/20123/", "result_type": "Animation", "release_date": "2007-09-14T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "GLAST Launch and Deployment", "description": "GLAST's launch is scheduled for early 2008 from Cape Canaveral Air Station on Florida's eastern coast. GLAST will be carried on a Delta II Heavy launch vehicle, with 9 solid rocket boosters. The solids are actually from the Delta III series (hence the term 'heavy'), mounted on a Delta II. It has a 10-foot fairing and two stages. Stowed in the launch vehicle, the spacecraft is 9.2 feet (2.8 meters) high by 8.2 feet (2.5 meters) in diameter. Once deployed, GLAST becomes a little bit taller and much wider (15 meters) with the Ku-band antenna deployed and the solar arrays extended. || ", "hits": 25 }, { "id": 3439, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3439/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2007-09-13T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "Simulations of the Gamma-Ray Sky", "description": "The Gamma-Ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST) will observe the sky in gamma-rays with energies between 10 million electron volts (MeV) to 300 billion electron volts (GeV) (a photon of visible light is roughly 2 electron volts). At these energies, the detectors will receive roughly 2 photons every second. At these energies, the objects visible will be active galaxies, quasars, pulsars, and gamma-ray bursts. This visualization is generated from one year of simulated photon event-lists using known sources. These event lists are used for testing the various data analysis software being developed for the project. Due to the extremely low event rate, it takes about one week of event accumulation to see structure in the sky. To generate the 600+ frames of this visualization, the event lists were box-car averaged for a duration of one week for each frame, and each frame shifted 50,000 seconds in time from the previous frame. The low angular resolution of gamma-ray detectors makes point sources appear spread out in the sky. In these maps, the color of each pixel represents the number of photons accumulated in that pixel (over an energy range of 10MeV-300GeV). Horizontally, across the center of the map, is the diffuse emission from the plane of our own Milky Way galaxy. The images are projected in galactic coordinates with a plate carrée projection so there is significant distortion with increasing latitude above the galactic disk. This emission in the galactic plane is created by pulsars and supernova remnants. Located away from this plane is emission from active galaxies and high-velocity pulsars. Occasionally, a bright spot appears which can be a gamma-ray burst or quasar in an active state. || ", "hits": 51 } ] }