Today NASA's Glast mission is
going to launch a space telescope
the goal of which is to spot the most violent events that take place in the universe. The telescope will be launched
from Cape Canaveral air force
station, located in
NASA hopes its new mission will help search the universe for gamma rays. It is worth mentioning that the gamma rays are emitted by the black holes, as well as amalgamation of neutron stars and streams of hot gas that travel through the universe at enormous speeds.
The new observatory costs $690 million and it is expected to take images
of the gamma rays, thus providing answers about the source of cosmic rays, as well as the answer to
how black holes are able to accelerate huge jets of material to a speed that is
close to the speed of light.
According to the
"Glast enables scientists to look under the hood and see how the universe works," mentioned project scientist, Steve Ritz. It's interesting to note that gamma rays represent the most energetic form of electromagnetic radiation found in our universe. The energy is billions of time more powerful than the visible light.
The orbiting lab will serve for making researches about strong bursts of gamma rays. According to the astronomers the gamma rays in one second emit as much energy as our sun during five billion years. In addition the mission is going to study the mysterious dark matter, which is believed to account for the biggest mass in the universe.
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