Speaker
Prof.
J. E. Grove
Description
The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope observes gamma rays from the cosmos in the broad energy range from 20 MeV to >300 GeV, with supporting observations of gamma-ray bursts from 8 keV to 30 MeV. The telescope far surpasses previous generations in its ability to detect and localize faint gamma-ray sources, as well as its ability to see 20% of the sky at any instant and scan the entire sky on a timescale of a few hours. With its launch in June 2008, Fermi opened a new and important window on a wide variety of astrophysical objects – including pulsars, black holes, active galaxies, gamma-ray bursts, supernova remnants – and is enabling new research on such topics as the origin of cosmic rays and searches for hypothetical new phenomena such as annihilation of dark matter. In addition to a summary of results and the science opportunities, this talk includes a description of the instruments and the mission status and plans.
