Colloq Abstract - McEnery

February 9

11:00am Mountain

 

Julie McEnery (NASA/Goddard)

Exploring the Extreme Universe with Ten Years Observations with the Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope


Abstract

In its first 10 years of observations, the Fermi Gamma-ray Telescope has transformed our understanding of the high energy gamma-ray sky, opening an important and previously unexplored window on a wide variety of phenomena. These have included the discovery of an population of pulsars pulsing only in gamma rays; the detection of photons up to 10s of GeV from gamma-ray bursts, enhancing our understanding of the astrophysics of these powerful explosions; the detection of thousands of active galaxies; and constraints on
phenomena such as supersymmetric dark-matter annihilations and exotic relics from the Big Bang.  Continuous monitoring of the high-energy gamma-ray sky has uncovered numerous outbursts from active galaxies and the discovery of transient sources in our galaxy. In this talk I will describe the current status of the Fermi observatory, review the science highlights from the first 10 years of operations and discuss future opportunities with Fermi.

 


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