Advertisement You've never seen the constellations like this before. NASA scientists have re-envisioned the shapes in the night sky using data from the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, putting a modern twist on the age-old practice. Unlike the official 88 constellations, however, which are made up of recognizable forms created by the brightest stars, the new constellations map out the highest-energy form of light in the universe: gamma rays. The space agency has released an interactive website showing the different gamma-ray constellations in the sky, revealing everything from the Albert Einstein to the USS Enterprise. Scroll down for video NASA scientists have re-envisioned the shapes in the night sky using data from the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, putting a modern twist on the age-old practice. The new constellations map out the highest-energy form of light in the universe: gamma rays WHAT ARE GAMMA RAY BURSTS? Gamma ray bursts (GRBs), energetic jets of gamma rays that come from black holes, can be created in two different ways – resulting in long or short GRBs. They are created from some of the most violent deaths in the universe. Long GRBs last about a minute, and scientist think they are produced by supernova: when the core of a massive star collapses to become a black hole. Short GRBs last a second and are produced when two neutron stars merge. Advertisement 'Developing these unofficial constellations was a fun way to highlight a decade of Fermi's accomplishments,' said Julie McEnergy, the Fermi project scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. 'One way or another, all of the gamma-ray constellations have a tie-in to Fermi science.' According to NASA, some of the characters in the new constellation came about as the result of a gamma-ray experiment gone wrong. The series includes the Little Prince, the TARDIS from 'Doctor Who,' Godzilla and his heat ray, the antimatter-powered U.S.S. Enterprise from 'Star Trek: The Original Series' and the Hulk, along with several landmarks from countries involved in the Fermi project. Fermi's Large Area Telescope (LAT) has been surveying the sky every day since July 2008 measuring gamma rays. These are emitted by all sorts of cosmic phenomena, including pulsars, nova outbursts, gamma ray bursts, and supermassive black holes. According to NASA, some of the characters in the new constellation came about as the result of a gamma-ray experiment gone wrong. The series includes the Little Prince, the TARDIS from 'Doctor Who,' Godzilla and his heat ray, the antimatter-powered U.S.S. Enterprise from 'Star Trek: The Original Series' and the Hulk Fermi's Large Area Telescope (LAT) has been surveying the sky every day since July 2008 measuring gamma rays. These are emitted by all sorts of cosmic phenomena, including pulsars, nova outbursts, gamma ray bursts, and supermassive black holes 'By 2015, the number of different sources mapped by Fermi's LAT had expanded to about 3,000 – 10 times the number known before the mission,' said Goddard's Elizabeth Ferrara, who led the constellation project. 'For the first time ever, the number of known gamma-ray sources was comparable to the number of bright stars, so we thought a new set of constellations was a great way to illustrate the point.' The 21 gamma-ray constellations also include Sweden's recovered warship, Vasa, the Washington Monument, and Mount Fuji in Japan, as well as an array of people and concepts important to the scientific community. The space agency has released an interactive website showing the different gamma-ray constellations in the sky, revealing everything from the Albert Einstein to the USS Enterprise, with artwork from Sonoma State University-based illustrator, Aurore Simonnet The 21 gamma-ray constellations also include Sweden's recovered warship, Vasa, the Washington Monument, and Mount Fuji in Japan, as well as an array of people and concepts important to the scientific community The interactive site maps out the gamma-ray sky, as seen by Fermi, with artwork from Sonoma State University-based illustrator, Aurore Simonnet. 'Fermi is still going strong, and we are now preparing a new all-sky LAT catalog,' said Jean Ballet, a Fermi team member at the French Atomic Commission in Saclay. 'This will add about 2,000 sources, many varying greatly in brightness, further enriching these constellations and enlivening the high-energy sky.'<doc-sep>It’s probably the only time Albert Einstein, Godzilla and the Incredible Hulk will ever share an accolade, but the iconic figures are now part of constellations of extremely high-energy light sources grouped by NASA. The US space agency has mapped gamma ray sources from across the universe such as pulsars, exploding stars and black holes into constellations designed to look like iconic comic book characters, science heroes, landmarks – and even Schrodinger’s cat. Gamma-rays in the sky, seen by our @NASAFermi telescope! To celebrate the mission's 10-year anniversary, scientists used Fermi sources to create a set of unofficial gamma-ray constellations. Explore the interactive map and find them all: https://t.co/m3pF7WHOQTpic.twitter.com/pPtiPfHJY1 — NASA (@NASA) October 19, 2018 In celebration of the Fermi Gamma Ray Space Telescope’s 10 years of service, NASA drew up the quirky set of constellations to promote the work of its industrious orbiter. Designed in the same vein as star constellations, the areas of powerful light energy, or gamma rays, have been shaped like Marvel’s Incredible Hulk, the Eiffel Tower in France, and the reptilian movie monster Godzilla. READ MORE: Space junk plunges out of orbit and crashes on California farm (PHOTOS) Another of the constellations has been titled Schrodinger’s Cat – named after the famous thought experiment by the eponymous Austrian physicist. Meanwhile, Albert Einstein, Vasa (a Swedish king’s lost ship of treasure), Dr Who’s Tardis, and Mount Fuji also get their name up in lights. Electromagnetic and radioactive stellar lights, that is. The Fermi telescope has been in operation since July 2008, when it began its job of scanning the skies for unusual light patterns. So far, the orbiter has spotted gamma-ray sources from everything like explosive supernovas to the creation of black holes – phenomena that normally escape the view of the naked eye. READ MORE: Epic trip to hot planet: First Euro-Japanese space mission to unravel Mercury’s mysteries (VIDEO) “Developing these unofficial constellations was a fun way to highlight a decade of Fermi’s accomplishments,” said Fermi project scientist, Julie McEnery. “One way or another, all of the gamma-ray constellations have a tie-in to Fermi science.” Images of the gamma-ray collections has been turned into an interactive page, where people can explore many of Fermi’s discoveries. The work coincides with a new catalog of gamma-ray sources, which is in production with help from atomic energy experts. “Fermi is still going strong, and we are now preparing a new all-sky catalog,” said Jean Ballet, a Fermi team member at the French Atomic Energy Commission. “This will add about 2,000 sources, many varying greatly in brightness, further enriching these constellations and enlivening the high-energy sky.” Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!<doc-sep>NASA has used certain characters from modern myths such as the "Hulk" and "Godzilla" to name its new set of 21 gamma-ray constellations constructed in celebration of its Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope's 10th year of operations. Fermi has mapped about 3,000 gamma-ray sources - 10 times the number known before its launch and comparable to the number of bright stars in the traditional constellations. "For the first time ever, the number of known gamma-ray sources was comparable to the number of bright stars, so we thought a new set of constellations was a great way to illustrate the point," NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center's Elizabeth Ferrara who led the constellation project said in a statement. "Developing these unofficial constellations was a fun way to highlight a decade of Fermi's accomplishments," Julie McEnery, the Fermi project scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center said. Comic book fans who know the backstory of Hulk, the big, green, angry alter ego of Bruce Banner, whose experiments with gamma rays went terribly wrong, could easily appreciate NASA's pick in naming one of its constellations. Gamma rays are the strongest form of light. They pack enough punch to convert into matter under the right circumstances, a transformation both Banner and the Hulk would certainly appreciate. NASA's choice of Godzilla constellation is linked to its trademark weapon "heat ray," a fiery jet. This bears at least a passing resemblance to gamma-ray jets associated with black holes and neutron stars. Godzilla ranks as one of cinema's most famous monsters and is among the most recognisable symbols of Japanese popular culture. In the original 1954 movie, nuclear weapons tests disturb the creature's deep ocean habitat, and it emerges from the sea to wreak havoc in Japan. The 21 gamma-ray constellations also include famous landmarks - such as Sweden's recovered warship, Vasa, the Washington Monument and Mount Fuji in Japan - in countries contributing to Fermi science. Since 2008, Fermi's Large Area Telescope (LAT) has been scanning the entire sky each day, mapping and measuring sources of gamma rays, the highest-energy light in the universe. The emission may come from pulsars, nova outbursts, the debris of supernova explosions and giant gamma-ray bubbles located in our own galaxy, or supermassive black holes and gamma-ray bursts -- the most powerful explosions in the cosmos -- in others. "Fermi is still going strong, and we are now preparing a new all-sky LAT catalogue," said Jean Ballet, a Fermi team member at the French Atomic Energy Commission in Saclay. "This will add about 2,000 sources, many varying greatly in brightness, further enriching these constellations and enlivening the high-energy sky!"<doc-sep>Look up at the night sky, and you won't see Albert Einstein, the Eiffel Tower, or any of the other 21 gamma-ray constellations that NASA recently named For thousands of years, humans have looked up at the stars and ordered them into constellations: the Hulk ... the TARDIS ... Schrödinger's cat. Not familiar with these? That's probably because you can't see them without a gamma-ray telescope — and also, NASA just invented them. To highlight the first decade of discoveries recorded by NASA's Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope, U.S. astronomers have connected the dots on the universe's invisible sources of gamma-ray energy. This allowed the researchers to map 21 brand-new constellations onto the celestial sphere. You won't see these shapes in the night sky; despite being the universe's most powerful sources of light, gamma-rays are invisible to human eyes. But you can see the shapes all on a new interactive website crafted by NASA scientists and artist Aurore Simonnet, of Sonoma State University in California. [11 Fascinating Facts About Our Milky Way Galaxy] "Developing these unofficial constellations was a fun way to highlight a decade of Fermi's accomplishments," Julie McEnery, a Fermi project scientist and an astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, said in a statement. "One way or another, all of the gamma-ray constellations have a tie-in to Fermi science." via GIPHY Since it was deployed in 2008, the Fermi telescope has been scouring the cosmos for sources of gamma-rays. These high-powered rays are invisible to us but hurtle constantly across space. They shine out of exploding stars, strobe off of spinning pulsars and radiate from the edges of unfathomably powerful black holes at the centers of distant galaxies. (According to NASA, about half of the universe's known gamma-ray sources fit into that last category.) Within seven years of the telescope's deployment, Fermi had already mapped about 3,000 previously unknown sources of gamma energy exploding across the sky — about 10 times the number of sources known prior to the mission, according to NASA. Now cobbled into ersatz constellations, these gamma blasts take the form of world landmarks (like the Eiffel Tower and the Roman Colosseum), sci-fi spacecraft (like the starship Enterprise from "Star Trek" and "Doctor Who's" time-traveling TARDIS), and homages to icons of science like Einstein and the cardboard box that contains Erwin Schrödinger's living/dead cat. Perhaps the most elegant marriage of medium and message is the constellation of the Hulk, who owes his famous viridescent bod to a gamma-ray experiment gone wrong. Stargaze at all these new patterns in the sky — and see where they fall in relation to the 88 visible-light constellations we know and love — right here. Originally published on Live Science.<doc-sep>
Long ago, sky watchers linked the brightest stars into patterns reflecting animals, heroes, monsters and even scientific instruments into what is now an official collection of 88 constellations. Now scientists with NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope have devised a set of modern constellations constructed from sources in the gamma-ray sky to celebrate the mission’s 10th year of operations. To explore Fermi’s Gamma-ray Constellations, visit:https://fermi.gsfc.nasa.gov/science/constellations/ The new constellations include a few characters from modern myths. Among them are the Little Prince, the time-warping TARDIS from “Doctor Who,” Godzilla and his heat ray, the antimatter-powered U.S.S. Enterprise from “Star Trek: The Original Series” and the Hulk, the product of a gamma-ray experiment gone awry. “Developing these unofficial constellations was a fun way to highlight a decade of Fermi’s accomplishments,” said Julie McEnery, the Fermi project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “One way or another, all of the gamma-ray constellations have a tie-in to Fermi science.” Since July 2008, Fermi’s Large Area Telescope (LAT) has been scanning the entire sky each day, mapping and measuring sources of gamma rays, the highest-energy light in the universe. The emission may come from pulsars, nova outbursts, the debris of supernova explosions and giant gamma-ray bubbleslocated in our own galaxy, or supermassive black holes and gamma-ray bursts — the most powerful explosions in the cosmos — in others. “By 2015, the number of different sources mapped by Fermi’s LAT had expanded to about 3,000 — 10 times the number known before the mission,” said Goddard’s Elizabeth Ferrara, who led the constellation project. “For the first time ever, the number of known gamma-ray sources was comparable to the number of bright stars, so we thought a new set of constellations was a great way to illustrate the point.” The 21 gamma-ray constellations include famous landmarks — such as Sweden’s recovered warship, Vasa, the Washington Monument and Mount Fuji in Japan — in countries contributing to Fermi science. Others represent scientific ideas or tools, from Schrödinger’s Cat — both alive and dead, thanks to quantum physics — to Albert Einstein, Radio Telescope and Black Widow Spider, the namesake of a class of pulsars that evaporate their unfortunate companion stars. Ferrara and Daniel Kocevski, an astrophysicist now at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, developed a web-based interactive to showcase the constellations, with artwork from Aurore Simonnet, an illustrator at Sonoma State University in Rohnert Park, California, and a map of the whole gamma-ray sky from Fermi. Clicking on a constellation turns on its artwork and name, which includes a link to a page with more information. Other controls switch on the visible sky and selected traditional constellations. “Fermi is still going strong, and we are now preparing a new all-sky LAT catalog,” said Jean Ballet, a Fermi team member at the French Atomic Energy Commission in Saclay. “This will add about 2,000 sources, many varying greatly in brightness, further enriching these constellations and enlivening the high-energy sky!” NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope is an astrophysics and particle physics partnership, developed in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy and with important contributions from academic institutions and partners in France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Sweden and the United States.