You may want to look to the skies the next clear night for constellations of modern characters and superheroes.
Nasa declares New unofficial constellations to celebrate the ten year anniversary of Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. These include characters from modern myths, such as Little Prince, TARDIS from “Doctor Who”, Godzilla, Star Trek, U.S. Enterprise, and Hulk.
Julie McEnery, the Fermi project scientist explained “Developing these unofficial constellations was a fun way to highlight a decade of Fermi’s accomplishments.” This telescope has mapped about three thousand gamma-ray sources. This is ten times the number known before its launch and comparable to the number of bright stars in the traditional constellations.
Elizabeth Ferrara, who led the project, says “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 other 21 constellations include famous landmarks across the globe, and scientific ideas or tools, such as Schrodinger’s Cat.
This telescope, officially called Fermi’s Large Area Telescope or LAT, has been scanning the sky each day. The telescope measures sources of the highest-energy light, gamma ray’s. The energy this telescope picks up comes from pulsars, nova outbursts, the debris of supernova explosions, gamma-ray bubbles, supermassive black holes, and gamma-ray bursts. These are important to map out and monitor because some of these are the most powerful explosions in the cosmos.
This is a good effort, Kaitlynn. You could have a bit more fun with the lead, I suppose: Look. Up in the sky. It’s Godzilla…. No, really. NASA has….
In the body, focus less on the sources. Maybe include one quote from one of the scientists. Put the emphasis on why the telescope is important.