Skip to main content

Happy birthday, Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope

The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope launches one year ago. (Photo: NASA)

The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope launched one year ago. (Photo: NASA)

Today marks one year since the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope was launched into orbit. Since then, the telescope has discovered a whole new set of pulsars, gained a new view of cosmic jets, seen the most extreme gamma-ray blasts ever, created new sky maps in gamma-rays, shown that blazars are more complex than previously thought, observed a mysterious excess of high-energy electrons from space that could be from pulsars or possibly a sign of dark matter, and spotted gamma-ray bursts that lasted for half an hour rather than the expected few minutes.

Happy birthday, Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope!