Starship Asterisk*

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap080828.html
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap020112.html
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http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap040403.html

<<When the EGRET instrument on the orbiting Compton Gamma-ray Observatory surveyed the sky in the 1990s, it cataloged 271 celestial sources of high-energy gamma-rays. Researchers identified some with exotic black holes, neutron stars, and distant flaring galaxies. But 170 of the cataloged sources, shown in the above all-sky map, remain unidentified. Many sources in this gamma-ray mystery map likely belong to already known classes of gamma-ray emitters and are simply obscured or too faint to be otherwise positively identified. However, astronomers have called attention to the ribbon of sources winding through the plane of the galaxy, projected here along the middle of the map, which may represent a large unknown class of galactic gamma-ray emitters. In any event, the unidentified sources could remain a mystery until the planned launch of the more sensitive Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope in 2007.>>

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap080828.html

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap080613.html
<<"Rising through a billowing cloud of smoke, this Delta II rocket left Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's launch pad 17-B Wednesday at 12:05 pm EDT. Snug in the payload section was GLAST, the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope, now in orbit around planet Earth. GLAST's detector technology was developed for use in terrestrial particle accelerators. But from orbit, GLAST can study gamma-rays from extreme environments in our own Milky Way galaxy, as well as supermassive black holes at the centers of distant active galaxies, and the sources of powerful gamma-ray bursts. Those cosmic accelerators achieve energies not attainable in earthbound laboratories. GLAST also has the sensitivity to search for signatures of new physics in the relatively unexplored high-energy gamma-ray regime.">>

I noticed some of Professor Bonnell’s (one of the Author/Editors responsible for APOD) work has “something to do with” gamma ray observations. I wonder if he has or will have work with the new GLAST orbiting observatory. It looks to be scientifically exciting in that GLAST was able to capture data in four days that previously took a year!

It is now named the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, although Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope made for a much better acronym (GLAST). It will probably be called Fermi (like Hubble) rather than FGST (how do you even say that).

Better than the
Fermi
amma (oops forgot the "g")
Ray
Telescope