Explanation:
They may look like modern mechanical dinosaurs but they are enormous swiveling eyes
that watch the sky.
The
High Energy Stereoscopic System (H.E.S.S.) Observatory is composed of four 12-meter
reflecting-mirror telescopes surrounding a
larger telescope housing a 28-meter mirror.
They are designed to detect strange flickers of blue light --
Cherenkov radiation
--emitted when
charged particles move
slightly faster than the
speed of light in air.
This light is emitted when a
gamma ray
from a distant source strikes a molecule in Earth's atmosphere and starts a
charged-particle shower.
H.E.S.S. is sensitive to some of the highest energy photons
(TeV)
crossing the universe.
Operating since 2003 in
Namibia,
H.E.S.S. has searched for dark
matter and has
discovered over 50 sources emitting high energy radiation including
supernova remnants and the
centers of galaxies that contain supermassive
black holes.
Pictured last September, H.E.S.S. telescopes swivel and stare in
time-lapse sequences shot in front of our
Milky Way Galaxy and the
Magellanic Clouds --
as the occasional Earth-orbiting satellite zips by.
