Astrophysics & Cosmology
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Imaging sensors installed in LSST ComCam
The LSST camera integration and testing team inserted a raft of nine imaging sensors into the body of the ComCam. This miniature version of the LSST camera will be used for telescope commissioning. Check out photos of this and other recent activity from the LSST camera clean room.
SLAC-Stanford partnership lauded
SLAC Director Chi-Chang Kao spoke to the Stanford University Faculty Senate at its Feb. 21 meeting.
Symmetry: An astronomical data challenge
The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope will track billions of objects for 10 years, creating unprecedented opportunities for studies of cosmic mysteries.
Symmetry: Dark Energy Survey completes six-year mission
Scientists, including researchers at SLAC, have only just begun to study the remarkably detailed map they created of a portion of the sky.
Tangled magnetic fields power cosmic particle accelerators
SLAC scientists find a new way to explain how a black hole’s plasma jets boost particles to the highest energies observed in the universe. The results could also prove useful for fusion and accelerator research on Earth.
Symmetry: Gravitational lenses
Predicted by Einstein and discovered in 1979, gravitational lensing helps astrophysicists understand the evolving shape of the universe.
Symmetry: The building boom
These projects, selected during the process to plan the future of US particle physics, are all set to come online within the next 10 years.
Symmetry: Five mysteries the Standard Model can’t explain
Our best model of particle physics explains only about 5 percent of the universe.
Missing gamma-ray blobs shed new light on dark matter, cosmic magnetism
Astrophysicists use a catalog of extended gamma-ray sources spotted by Fermi spacecraft to home in on mysterious properties of deep space.
Peering into 36-million-degree plasma with SLAC’s X-ray laser
In a first, researchers measure extremely small and fast changes that occur in plasma when it’s zapped with a laser. Their technique will have applications in astrophysics, medicine and fusion energy.
