Seeing the universe through gamma-ray eyes

The scientists have stopped holding their breath. Three weeks after the launch of the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST), researchers from Stanford University, the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center and elsewhere have shaken awake the scientific instruments aboard their $690 million satellite, 350 miles above Earth, for the first time. And everything's working.

On the Large Area Telescope, the principal instrument on GLAST, the computers booted up properly, the 16 gamma-ray detectors came to life, and communications checked out well. The observatory's navigation system is following directions from the ground to turn toward interesting objects.

"I've been watching space projects for 30 years or so and I've never seen one go as smoothly as this one," said Roger Blandford, the director of the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, which is housed both on the main Stanford campus and at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC).

The telescope will see the normally invisible gamma rays from stars and other cosmic objects and offer a more complete view of some of the most violent events in the universe. GLAST will study, among other things, enormously powerful gamma-ray bursts, strange beams of charged particles from spinning black holes and pulses of energy from spinning neutron stars.

It may even find the gamma-ray signature of dark matter, the unseen material that may hold the universe together.

Data from the satellite already has begun flowing to the Instrument Science Operations Center at SLAC, where it is used to calibrate the telescope for the work ahead. The telescope is weeding out unwanted cosmic rays and measuring the first of the billion or so gamma rays it should eventually see from cosmic sources.

Some 30 collaboration members from around the world have come to SLAC to assist in the commissioning phase to bring the Large Area Telescope to its mission-ready performance.

"Everybody's really happy," said Rob Cameron, the manager of the SLAC operations center. "We've got plenty of work to do. We've got to calibrate the instrument, tune it up to prepare it for science."

GLAST is a NASA project, a consortium of six countries and 14 U.S. research institutions. At Stanford, project members come from SLAC, a U.S. Department of Energy laboratory; the Physics Department; the Hansen Experimental Physics Laboratory; and the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology.

Source: Stanford University

Related stories:

Giant Furnace Opens to Reveal 'Perfect' LSST Mirror Blank
(PhysOrg.com) -- The single-piece primary and tertiary mirror blank cast for the LSST is "perfect", say project astronomers and engineers.
GLAST mission operations at NASA Goddard powered up
Several bases of operations for NASA's Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST) are gearing up for data from the recently launched satellite.
Looking for New Light
In many ways, astronomers are in the dark about asteroids. In the dark depths of the Kuiper Asteroid Belt beyond Neptune's orbit, and even in the nearby Main Belt between Jupiter and Mars, most asteroids are too small to reflect back enough sunlight to be seen by our telescopes. But as cosmic rays travel through our solar system, they may strike a glancing blow off the surface of an asteroid, producing gamma rays (short wavelength light waves). Researchers now report that they can use this gamma ray radiation to infer the number of small asteroids in different groups of small solar system bodies. However, they will have to wait to test their ideas until the new Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST), launched last week by NASA, returns data.

Excitement Builds as GLAST Readies Its Gamma-ray Vision
Scientists around the world are excited about all the things that the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope, or GLAST, is going to uncover after it launches on June 5 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla.
NASA'S GLAST satellite gets unwrapped for the holidays
Everyone likes getting high-tech presents for Christmas and Hanukkah, and the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington received a wonderful present this year - NASA’s Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST).
Astronomer detects atmosphere of extra-solar planet
University of Texas at Austin astronomer and Hubble Fellow Seth Redfield has used the Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET) at McDonald Observatory to make the first ground-based detection of the atmosphere of a planet outside our solar system.
Instrument to make detailed measurements of sun activity
For five years, Stanford research physicist Phil Scherrer and his team have raised a sophisticated space telescope with the attention a parent gives to a child, preparing it for the day when it flies away on a satellite to study the weather on the sun—and maybe save an astronaut from dying of radiation sickness.
NASA's Glast satellite arrives at Naval Research Lab for testing
NASA’s Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST) has arrived at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) in Washington, for its final round of testing.

News discussion:

Space & Earth science news