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Written by Derek Kessler on
Sunday, 20 July 2008
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 (From June 11, 2008) NASA’s Gamma ray Large Area Space Telescope, GLAST if you’re not into saying that mouthful over and over again, successfully launch from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on June 11. The new telescope was lofted into space aboard a Delta II rocket, and just 75 minutes after launch had settled into its designated low Earth orbit.
GLAST will study the gamma ray spectrum of our skies, searching for the immense black holes thought to be at the center of large galaxies, pulsars, and the ever-elusive dark matter. The telescope will also be equipped with a space-monitoring gamma ray burst detector, which will pick up the powerful dying emissions of large stars.
Astronomers, physicists, and a whole host of other scientists hope the data collected by GLAST will be able to answer lingering questions about space. Among them will be the source of gamma ray bursts and how black holes eject jets of matter at near light speed. GLAST will undergo 60 days of system checks and calibration before beginning science operations. The telescope was developed by the US Department of Energy, NASA, and academic institutions and space agencies in France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Sweden, and the United States.
View: GLAST Web site
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