GLAST telescope in orbit

NASA's latest space-based observatory, the Gamma-Ray Large Area Telescope (GLAST), is now successfully in orbit around Earth at 565 kilometres altitude. Launched on Thursday 11th June 2008 by a Delta II rocket at 17:05pm BST (12:05 EST), it is currently undergoing tests to ensure all the instruments are working correctly.

It carries two main instruments: the Large Area Telescope (LAT) and the Burst Monitor (GBM). The first instrument will be used to reconstruct images at very high energies (photons with up to 300 GeV which are radiated by the most energetic events in the Universe). The second instrument is used to detect short-lived sources such as the Gamma-Ray Bursts of which around 200 will be discovered annully (around the same rate as Swift, which is dedicated to discovering GRBs).

Links

GLAST
Swift