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APOD: 2023 September 6 Á HESS Telescopes Explore the High Energy Sky
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Credit & Copyright: Jeff Dai
(TWAN),
H.E.S.S. Collaboration;
Music: Ibaotu catalog number 1044988 (Used with permission)
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 in June,
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.
Music: Ibaotu catalog number 1044988 (Used with permission)
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A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
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Based on Astronomy Picture
Of the Day
Publications with keywords: gamma ray
Publications with words: gamma ray
See also: