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mysterious objects at the edge of the

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electromagnetic spectrum presented by

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science at NASA the human eye is crucial

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to astronomy without the ability to see

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the luminous universe of stars planets

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and galaxies would be close to us

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unknown forever nevertheless astronomers

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can't shake their fascination with

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things they cannot see outside the realm

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of human vision is an entire

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electromagnetic spectrum of wonders each

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type of light from radio waves to gamma

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rays reveals something unique about the

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universe some wavelengths are best for

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studying black holes others reveal

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newborn stars and planets while others

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illuminate the earliest years of cosmic

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history nASA has many telescopes working

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the wavelengths up and down the

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electromagnetic spectrum one of them the

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fermi gamma-ray telescope orbiting Earth

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has just crossed a new electromagnetic

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frontier Fermi is picking up crazy

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energetic photons says Dave Thompson an

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astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space

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Flight Center and it's detecting so many

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of them we've been able to produce the

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first all-sky map of the very

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high-energy universe this is what the

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sky looks like near the very edge of the

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electromagnetic spectrum between 10

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billion and 100 billion electron volts

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the light we see with human eyes

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consists of photons with energies in the

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range two to three electron volts the

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gamma rays Fermi detects are billions of

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times more energetic from 20 million to

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more than 300 billion electron volts

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these gamma-ray photons are so energetic

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they cannot be guided by the mirrors and

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lenses found in ordinary telescopes

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instead Fermi uses a sensor that is more

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like a Geiger counter than a telescope

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if we could wear Fermi's gamma-ray

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glasses we'd witness powerful bullets of

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energy individual gamma rays from cosmic

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phenomena such as supermassive black

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holes and hypernova explosions the sky

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would be a frenzy of activity before

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Fermi was launched in june two thousand

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eight there were only four known

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celestial sources of photons in this

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energy range in three years Fermi has

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found almost 500 more says Thompson what

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lies within this new realm mystery for

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one thing says Thompson about a third of

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the new sources can't be clearly linked

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to any of the known types of objects

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that produce gamma rays we have no idea

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what they are the rest have one thing in

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common prodigious energy among them are

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supermassive black holes called blazars

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the ceiling remnants of supernova

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explosions and rapidly rotating neutron

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stars called pulsars and some of the

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gamma rays seem to come from the Fermi

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bubbles giant structures emanating from

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the Milky Way's Center and spanning some

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20,000 light-years above and below the

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Galactic plane exactly how these bubbles

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formed is another mystery

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now that the first sky map is complete

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Fermi is working on another more

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sensitive and detailed survey in the

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next few years Fermi should reveal

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something new about all these phenomena

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what makes them tick and why the

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generates such unearthly levels of

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energy says David panic a leader in this

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work from the Max Planck Institute in

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Germany for now though there are more

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unknowns than knowns about Fermi's world

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says Thompson it's pretty exciting for