Live from the American Astronomical Society - January 07, 2009
Nature’s space-man Eric Hand is blogging from the American Astronomical Society on our In the Field blog. Here’s what he’s been up to recently…
Fermi finds new pulsar classes
In just a matter of months, the Fermi gamma ray observatory since its launch has found dozens of new pulsars -- spinning, magnetized remnants of supernovae -- that emit a flashing signal in the gamma-ray part of the spectrum only. This new class of pulsar has revolutionized scientists' view of its general structure: Early in a pulsar's lifetime, it blasts a broad gamma-ray signal rather than a narrow polar one, as was previously thought.
Dr. Penny Sackett began her term as Australia's chief scientist in November 2008 -- a government position akin to the presidential science adviser in the US -- but still feels enough of an allegiance to the community from which she hails (astronomy) to come and give an invited talk at AAS on Tuesday. Towards the end of the talk, which was an overview of Australian science and its place in the world, she mentioned in passing that the government is considering establishing a national space agency.
Many AAS sessions here are emphasizing temporal astronomy -- the idea that the heavens are by no means as static as was once thought. Two new projects, LSST and Pan-STARRS, will exploit wide fields of view and scan vast swaths of the sky night after night in the hopes of catching variable stars, supernovae, pulsars, even the occasional killer asteroid.
Image: NASA / Fermi / LAT Collaboration / Dana Berry
