The Gamma-Ray Large Area Space Telescope, or GLAST, was launched into Earth orbit just a week ago (I’ve written about it a zillion times). What with all the stuff going on in space right now it might feel hard to keep up with GLAST, but then today’s a happy day for you: GLAST has a blog!
It’s written by Steve Ritz, the GLAST Project Scientist, so he has some passing familiarity with what’s what on the observatory. He’s been keeping it fairly up-to-date, with a list of what GLAST is doing right now (going through testing before turning on the main instruments).
I’ll put it on my daily checklist to make sure I know what’s going on. You should too. When GLAST starts doing science there’ll be plenty to talk about.
June 19th, 2008 at 11:51 am
Duely added to my checklist SIR! Jeez what with Cassini, HIRISE, Stereo, SOHO, New Horizons, CERN,etc etc etc….Not to mention this blog and Chris Lintotts and nasa and Richard Dawkins and all the other skeptic/astronomy/science/humour blogs to be checked AND final submission for archaeology module of my degree course in (ZOINKS!) five weeks. Two kids and a long term ill husband to look after, housework,cooking,Harp practice and a pile of books that desperately need reading, and Wimbledon begins on Monday. I think we should re arrange the solar system so days can be a few hours longer. PLEEEZ
June 19th, 2008 at 11:54 am
I’m curious whether GLAST will (or could be) used to look for gamma rays at an energy of 1.02 million electron volts or more (fingerprints for naturally occurring antimatter). PAMELA (Payload for AntiMatter-Matter Exploration and Light-Nuclei Astrophysics) was launched in 2006. Is GLAST suitable or useful for this purpose?
DZ
June 19th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
For those interested, here’s another nice and creative project in the works. It’s not going into space, but it is the most sensitive radio telescope in the world, until the SKA comes online in 2008.
It’s LOFAR (http://www.lofar.org/)
And I feel I should point out I work in the (future) data processing center.
June 19th, 2008 at 2:34 pm
This is fantastic. That launch photo they have linked in the blog is incredible. Even more adjectives to come!
June 19th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
I don’t have time to read all the blogs that I want to read, so I just choose one general blog on each subject. I read this one for general science news (the kind that may -or may not- be picked up by major news organizations), another one for local/regional/national political news, and one more for interesting developments in energy saving techniques, renewable energy developments, new battery tech, etc. And those 3 are the only ones I read on a regular basis. If I tried to read more I’d spend all day long reading blogs!
, not that that wouldn’t be fun.
June 20th, 2008 at 10:27 am
Dizzy,
1.02 GEV is well within GLAST’s range (up to several hundred GEV, I believe).
June 21st, 2008 at 7:35 am
Dizzy,
Oops. My previous post lost track of a few orders of magnitude. You were talking about 1.02 MEV, not GEV. The GLAST homepage at Glast.Stanford.edu says that the range for GLAST begins at about 10 MEV.
June 21st, 2008 at 12:31 pm
SKA in 2008???? You mean more like 2028? Or did I read that wrong and you meant LOFAR comes online in 2008?
June 21st, 2008 at 6:51 pm
Woot! Can’t wait for some good gamma ray data to pile up now.
I wonder how high up the gamma ray part of the spectrum it can detect?
June 22nd, 2008 at 2:57 pm
quasidog,
According to the GLAST Stanford homepage, GLAST’s range is from about 10 MeV to over 100 GeV.
June 23rd, 2008 at 3:57 am
Great .. thanks Brian ;p
February 4th, 2010 at 12:15 am
Update : GLAST was launched nicely and is now renamed Fermi. It has been running successfully and very well for some time.
See on Wikipedia :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_Gamma-ray_Space_Telescope
& their NASA homepage :
http://fermi.gsfc.nasa.gov/