A NASA space telescope that will study the universe in high-energy gamma-ray light will get a ride to orbit with SpaceX a few years from now. The agency announced on Tuesday (July 2) that it has selected SpaceX’s Falcon 9 to be the rocket ride for its Compton Spectrometer and Imager mission, or COSI for […]
Scientists may be a step closer to discovering how gamma-ray bursts come to be some of the most powerful explosions in the known universe. For context, a single gamma-ray burst, or GRB, can produce more energy in seconds than the sun will radiate in billions of years. Because of this power, scientists theorize that GRBs […]
Astronomers believe they have found a rare, massive flare that erupted from an extremely magnetic dead star, or magnetar, that was bright enough to illuminate an entire galaxy. If true, the discovery would represent the first time gamma rays from a “recently deceased” neutron star erupting outside the Milky Way have been seen. The flare […]
SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) — Approximately a year and a half ago, a massive star collapsed and exploded 2 billion light-years away from Earth creating the brightest gamma-ray burst ever recorded, according to a newly released study. The gamma-ray burst (GRB) blinded gamma-ray telescopes on Earth and shook the upper parts of our planet’s atmosphere, […]
NASA has officially halted science observations conducted by its Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory. Don’t worry, though. The space telescope, which observes some of the most powerful blasts of radiation from the universe’s most violent cosmic events, known as “gamma-ray bursts,” is only temporarily out of order. NASA placed Swift into safe mode on March 15 […]
If solar scientists aren’t already eager to observe the sun as it reaches solar maximum in 2024, a newly discovered gamma-ray puzzle will intensify that desire. While examining 14 years worth of data from NASA’s Fermi space telescope, a team of researchers discovered that during the last solar maximum in 2013 and 2014, the polar […]
Astronomers have discovered an unexpected and unexplained feature outside our Milky Way galaxy that’s radiating high-energy light called gamma rays. The team behind the discovery, including NASA and University of Maryland cosmologist Alexander Kashlinsky, found the gamma-ray signal while searching through 13 years of data from NASA’s Fermi Telescope. “It is a completely serendipitous discovery,” […]