The Fermi telescope, or NASA’s Fermi Gamma Ray Space Telescope, has been a fundamental piece in the latest advances in the fascinating field of space exploration. To celebrate its first 10 years of life, the US Space Agency has created 21 new unofficial constellations.
Mapping an invisible side of the universe
Space may seem like a dark void dotted with a few patches of light, yet it is a kind of illusion. What we see is just a rainbow of visible light – a limited portion of the electromagnetic spectrum and of reality itself. Our human eyes cannot detect “colors” of light that are less energetic than deep red, such as radio, microwave, and infrared. We also cannot see ultraviolet rays, X-rays, or gamma rays, the most energetic form of light in the universe. But large-caliber telescopes can see these wavelengths and make them visible to us.
One of these observatories is precisely the Fermi gamma ray space telescope . NASA launched this car-sized satellite in 2008, and since then it has been mapping a usually invisible side of the universe.
The Fermi telescope exploration has revealed all kinds of objects to astronomers, including solar flares, cosmic explosions, and other highly energetic and violent processes in space.
To commemorate these 10 years of successes for the active telescope , team scientists have created 21 new – and curious – gamma-ray constellations.
“Developing these unofficial constellations was a fun way to highlight a decade of Fermi’s accomplishments,” Julie McEnery, Fermi project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, said in a press release. “In one way or another, all the gamma-ray constellations are related to the science of Fermi.”
These are unofficial constellations , so we continue to have 88 recognized constellations, according to the International Astronomical Union.
The new constellations
In the northern sky we can find Schrödinger’s Cat (in honor of the imaginary experiment devised by the Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger), “The Little Prince” (the famous French novel by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry), a Saturn V rocket (the one used by the Apollo astronauts to reach the Moon), the Enterprise (from the mythical Star Trek saga), and the Roman Colosseum.
Also in the northern sky are the Incredible Hulk, the Eiffel Tower, the Fermi telescope itself, and a TARDIS (a police booth that travels through space and time in the “Doctor Who” series).
The southern night sky has its own – and curious – gamma-ray constellations. Among them are the Black Widow (the spider), Mount Fuji (the highest peak in Japan), Mjolnir (the mythical hammer of the Norse god Thor) and a portrait of the genius Albert Einstein.
You can explore all of these constellations on the interactive Fermi telescope website. Clicking on a constellation activates its name and design, which includes a link to a page with more information. It also allows us to see where the constellations are located in the visible night sky, relative to official constellations like Ursa Major, Sagittarius, or Gemini.
Reference: NASA / Constellation map online, here.
