Gamma-rays from a Nova

Not supernovae, which are the result of either a white dwarf blowing up or the core of a massive star collapsing upon itself, but a nova - a flash of light resulting from Hydrogen fusion beginning on the surface of a white dwarf resulting from material falling onto it from a companion star. The detection of gamma-rays means that particles are accelerated to really high energies in these explosions, just like in supernovae. Go here and here and here to learn more. Enjoy!

First images from Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope

Formerly known as GLAST, NASA presented last week the first images from the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope (FGST -not the catchiest acronym). There are really incredible, as you can see here, showing diffuse gamma-ray emission from the Milky Way as well as pulsed gamma-ray emission from the Vela pulsar, which you can watch here. To listen to this telecom, go here. Exciting stuff! Definitely a great beginning for GLAST (oops, Fermi).

GLAST Press Conference

NASA's newest astronomical satellite, the currently named Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST), has been up in space since June 11. It has finished it's engineering check-up and has now started taking science data. Tomorrow, NASA will hold a press conference at 1 PM ET, which will be stream live here. For more info on GLAST, check out this information page for media members, as well as my interviews with Dr. Julie McEnery, Dr. Dave Thompson, and Dr. Charles Meegan on the different instruments and scientific goals of GLAST. Last, but definitely not least, Dr. Steve Ritz - one of the top astronomers on GLAST - maintains a blog available here with the latest updates. Enjoy!

Interview with Dr. Charles Meegan online

Available here is my interview with Dr. Charles Meegan of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, on the GLAST Burst Monitor on GLAST. For more information on this instrument, check out their official webpage. Thank you for listening.

June 25th radio show online - GLAST

Available here is the June 25th radio show, not surprisingly devoted to the launch of the Gamma-Ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST) which I've been talking about and expected for the past 6 months. On this program, I covered:

• Calendar of upcoming events in the greater New York City / Poughkeepsie area
• GLAST: History of gamma-ray astronomy; many if not most of known gamma-ray sources are unidentified; GLAST significantly more sensitive and has much better angular and energy resolution than previous satellites. Has two main instruments, the Large Area Telescope (LAT) and GLAST Burst Monitor (GBM). The LAT will be used to constantly survey the gamma-ray sky (link), while the GBM is designed to detect transient events. Succesfully launched of June 11 (link), the first science observations are not expected to occur until 2 months after launch. To check out a music video summarizing the development and science of GLAST, go here.
• Interview with Dr. Charles Meegan of Marshall Space Flight Center, primary investigator of the GBM, discussing the science and technology of this instrument.
• Phoenix Mars Lander: Lots of daily updates
  • 5 June - two practice digs uncovered bright material in the soil just below the surface (link).
  • 6 June - Optical Microscope on Phoenix Mars Lander returns highest resolution images ever of Martian surface, seeing particles <1/10 the diameter of a human hair (link), first scoop of soil delivered to one of the on-board laboratories (link).
  • 7 June - soil was too clump to pass through the screen protecting the instrument, mission controllers will attempt to shake the material through(link).
  • 9 June - shaking continues, new soil sample acquired for a different instrument on the Phoenix Mars Lander (link).
  • 10 June - Mission controller tests a sprinkling technique to deliver soil to Phoenix Mars Lander which will hopefully break up the clumpy soil (link).
  • 11 June - Phoenix Mars Lander has oven full of soil, why it passed through the screen all of sudden not completely understood (link).
  • 13 June - Phoenix Mars Lander sprinkles some soil into another instrument (link).
  • 14 June - Two instruments on Phoenix Mars Lander now analyzing chemical composition, other properties of Martian soil (link).
  • 17 June - Baking of martian soil continues while robotic arm digs deeper to study the bright material uncovered on 3 June (link).
  • 18 June - Robotic arm keeps on digger, hoping to uncover more of the bright, white material first seen on 3 June (link); overload in mission housekeeping data causes some information in flash memory to be lost, not of it critical science data (link).
  • 19 June - Bright material uncovered on 3 June disappears, likely meaning that is was ice (as opposed to a bright salt-like compound) that sublimated (evaporated) after being exposed, confirming that ice below the surface on Mars is not confined to the polar regions (link, link).
  • 22 June - Phoenix Mars Lander sprinkles soil onto the Optical Microscope for a close-in image (link).

Thank you very much for listening, and hope you enjoyed this program. Please email or leave below any questions, comments or concerns you might have - any and all feedback is appreciated!

Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope

As you can watch here (courtesy of Kennedy Space Center and YouTube):

the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST) has finally been launched and appears to be (so-far, knock on wood) working well. GLAST is NASA's next generation gamma-ray observatory, and will detect photons with energies a million to a billion more energetic than optical light - an energy range currently being observed by zero satellites and undetectable from the ground, either directly or indirectly. For more information on what I think is NASA's most interesting astronomical satellite in the last or next 10 years (though I am admittedly biased given that GLAST does serve my research interests), I encourage you to check out this webpage as well as my interviews with Dr. Julie McEnery on GLAST and its main science instrument, the Large Area Telescope, and with Dr. David Thompson on the gamma-ray sky and the importance of multi-wavelength observations in understanding these high energy sources.

Today's radio show was also devoted to GLAST, and I hope to post it soon. As always, questions, comments, or concerns are welcomed.

GLAST launch schedule for today

The Gamma-Ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST) is scheduled to launch today, weather and safety checks permitting. Cross your fingers that it gets off successfully...

Interview with Dr. Dave Thompson now online

My interview with Dr. Dave Thompson, multi-wavelength coordinator of the upcoming Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST) is now online and available here. As he discusses, multi-wavelength observations are going to be critical in understanding the physical properties of the different types of gamma-ray sources (discussed here), as well as vital in determining the nature of unidentified gamma-ray sources, which GLAST will almost surely discover many (discussed in some more detail here).

As always, please email me any questions, comments, or concerns you might have or leave them below. Thank you for listening!

April 9th Radio Show online

Sorry for the delay, but the April 9th radio show is finally available for download here. On this program, I covered:

• Calendar of upcoming science events in the Poughkeepsie/New York City area
• Interview with Dr. Dave Thompson of Goddard Space Flight Center on multi-wavelength studies and GLAST
• News: Major shake-ups in NASA's administration - 2006 Nobel Prize Winner Dr. John Mather to focus his efforts on the James Webb Space Telescope (for more info on the successor to Hubble, listen to this.), Dr. S. Alan Stern resigns as Science Chief due to disputes with Administrator Michael Griffin over cuts to Mars rovers to fund overruns in cost of upcoming Mars Science Laboratory; NASA announces "Cassini Scientist for a Day" competition, more info available here; NASA hosted its 2008 Great Moonbuggy Race in Huntsville, AL - congratulations to all the teams who entered; Italy to help Kenya develop an Earth-observing satellite; Chinese Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopy Telesope (LAMOST) observatory approaches final technological hurdles before attempting to do an even larger and deeper survey of the sky than the extremely successful Sloan Digital Sky Survey; "Dark Matter" the movie in theaters on April 11 - science is a pretty accurate representation of Astronomical thought at the time, and character portrayals interesting for the first 2/3 of the movie.

Thank you very much for listening, and please email me or leave any questions, comments, or concerns you might have below.

Interview with Dr. Julie McEnery now online

My interview with Dr. Julie McEnergy of Goddard Space Flight Center is now online and available here. Dr. McEnery is one of the top scientists on NASA's Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST), and she discusses some of the science goals of GLAST. Given how poorly the high-energy sky is understood - approximately 50% of all known gamma-ray sources are unidentified, and this isn't including the many questions remaining concerning gamma-ray bursts with Dr. Neil Gehrels talked about - GLAST will likely revolutionize our understanding of the most powerful sources in the universe. No hyperbole (I think). For more on GLAST, also check out:

• NASA's official website.
• NASA's educational webpage for GLAST.
• Introduction to gamma-ray astronomy
• History of gamma-ray astronomy.

Thank you very much for listening, and hope you enjoyed it. As always, please email or post below any questions, comments, or concerns you might have. And again, thank you!