There’s some weird stuff out there in the remote reaches of the universe, things that we humans have only caught occasional glimpses of, or things whose existence we’ve only guessed at. But astrophysicists hope they’ll be able to aim a telescope deep into those dark corners by sometime next week, if all goes well with the launch of the $690 million orbital telescope tomorrow.
The Gamma-Ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST), which has been cleared for launch, will scan the skies for gamma rays, the highest-energy form of radiation on the electromagnetic spectrum, and will then try to identify their origins. That’s when it will get really weird and wonderful.
Researchers expect to detect gamma rays from pulsars, a form of extremely dense neutron star which spins around, sending out a beam of radiation that periodically sweeps past Earth like a lighthouse beacon. They’ll also be looking for gamma-ray bursts, ...
