Comments on: GLASTing impressions

By: Messier Tidy Upper

Messier Tidy Upper — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 07:15:22 +0000

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/

By: quasidog

quasidog — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 09:57:13 +0000

Great .. thanks Brian ;p

By: Brian

Brian — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 20:57:23 +0000

quasidog,
According to the GLAST Stanford homepage, GLAST’s range is from about 10 MeV to over 100 GeV.

By: quasidog

quasidog — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 00:51:18 +0000

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?

By: Nicole

Nicole — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 18:31:29 +0000

SKA in 2008???? You mean more like 2028? Or did I read that wrong and you meant LOFAR comes online in 2008?

By: Brian

Brian — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 13:35:20 +0000

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.

By: Brian

Brian — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 16:27:36 +0000

Dizzy,
1.02 GEV is well within GLAST’s range (up to several hundred GEV, I believe).

By: gopher65

gopher65 — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 21:46:27 +0000

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.

By: Brian Gefrich

Brian Gefrich — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 20:34:27 +0000

This is fantastic. That launch photo they have linked in the blog is incredible. Even more adjectives to come!

By: Sanity

Sanity — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 19:35:13 +0000

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.

By: Dizzy

Dizzy — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 17:54:16 +0000

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?

By: madge

madge — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 17:51:46 +0000

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