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NASA has selected the names of 21 new unofficial constellations. The discovery of new constellations was made using NASA's Fermi Gamma-Ray space telescope. Most of them bear the names of characters from modern myths such as Hulk, Godzilla and Doctor Who's TARDIS. The new set of constellations was created to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the operation of the Femi telescope.
"The development of these unofficial constellations was a fun way to celebrate a decade of Fermi achievements," said Julie McEnery, NASA's scientific director of the Fermi project at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. "In one way or another, all gamma ray constellations have a connection to Fermi science."
Fermi's Large Area Telescope (LAT) analyzes the entire sky every three hours. Since July 2008, he has observed thousands of gamma ray sources, the highest light form of energy in the universe. Now, these gamma ray sources have received names.
Gamma rays can come from black holes, neutron stars and other exotic cosmic objects from the universe, but this light is invisible to the eyes of humans. In ten years of observations, Fermi has cited numerous scientific discoveries related to gamma rays and revolutionized our understanding of the phenomenon.
"In 2015, the number of different sources mapped by the Fermi LAT had been increased to about 3,000, ten times more than before the mission," said Elizabeth Ferrara, who led the constellation project. "For the first time, the number of known gamma ray sources was comparable to the number of bright stars, so we thought that a new set of constellations was a great way to illustrate this point. "
Constellations are essentially shapes created by groups of stars. There are currently 88 official constellations and the ensemble of origin is recognized by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). Most of the original constellations are attributed to ancient Greek. The 21 new gamma-ray constellations are not only based on modern fictional characters, but also include famous landmarks such as the recovered Swedish warship, Vasa, the Washington Monument and Mount Fuji in Japan.
Fermi's more accurate vision detects more gamma-ray bursts than any other mission and continues to build a clearer picture of the sky from gamma rays.
"Fermi continues to work well and we are now preparing a new LAT all sky catalog," said Jean Ballet, a member of the Fermi team of the French Atomic Energy Commission in Saclay. "That will add about 2,000 sources, whose brightness varies a lot, enriching these constellations and animating the sky with high energy!"
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