Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope

The Universe is home to numerous exotic and beautiful phenomena, some of which can generate almost inconceivable amounts of energy. Supermassive black holes, merging neutron stars, streams of hot gas moving close to the speed of light ... these are but a few of the marvels that generate gamma-ray radiation, the most energetic form of radiation, billions of times more energetic than the type of light visible to our eyes. What is happening to produce this much energy? What happens to the surrounding environment near these phenomena? How will studying these energetic objects add to our understanding of the very nature of the Universe and how it behaves?

The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, formerly GLAST, is opening this high-energy world to exploration and helping us answer these questions. With Fermi, astronomers at long last have a superior tool to study how black holes, notorious for pulling matter in, can accelerate jets of gas outward at fantastic speeds. Physicists are able to study subatomic particles at energies far greater than those seen in ground-based particle accelerators. And cosmologists are gaining valuable information about the birth and early evolution of the Universe.

For this unique endeavor, one that brings together the astrophysics and particle physics communities, NASA has teamed up with the U.S. Department of Energy and institutions in France, Germany, Japan, Italy and Sweden. General Dynamics was chosen to build the spacecraft. Fermi was launched June 11, 2008 at 12:05 pm EDT.

Mission Objectives

  • Explore the most extreme environments in the Universe, where nature harnesses energies far beyond anything possible on Earth.
  • Search for signs of new laws of physics and what composes the mysterious Dark Matter.
  • Explain how black holes accelerate immense jets of material to nearly light speed.
  • Help crack the mysteries of the stupendously powerful explosions known as gamma-ray bursts.
  • Answer long-standing questions across a broad range of topics, including solar flares, pulsars and the origin of cosmic rays.

Latest News

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Jan 31, 2012

Scheduled Downtime

The FSSC will be offline for several hours beginning at 9:30 am ET Thursday, Feb. 2nd due to facilities maintenance. This outage will affect both web and data servers. We expect to resume normal operation by 2:00 pm ET.

Jan 25, 2012

The Fermi Cycle-5 Proposal Deadline Has Passed

As of the Friday, January 20,2012 deadline, NASA received a total of 221 proposals in response to the Fermi Cycle-5 NRA. The first stage of the Cycle-5 selection process, a scientific peer-review evaluation of these proposals, will occur in the early spring of 2012. The results of that first stage selection process will be announced in the April 2012 time frame.

Jan 12, 2012

Fermi Cycle-5 ARK/RPS Site Back Up - Proposal Deadline is Rapidly Approaching!

Reminder: Fermi Cycle-5 Guest Investigator Proposals are due on January 20, 2012. Please refer to the proposals page for details on how to prepare and submit a proposal. We look forward to your participation in Fermi mission cycle 5.

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