Gamma Rays

Hometown: Baltimore Current members: Eric Jacobsen, lead vocals and guitar; Matt Dorsey, drums and vocals; Mike Liszewski, bass and vocals; Jason Fritch, guitar and vocals. Founded in: 2001 Style: Punk rock Influenced by: The Ramones, The Clash, The Kinks and Screeching Weasel, to name a few. Notable: Forever in pursuit of an audience and a good time, these rockers say they'll play anywhere and everywhere, from basement parties and backyard barbecues to dingy bars and cavernous clubs.

If you think of the heavens as a peaceful place, with planets revolving around stars in timeless, predictable patterns, NASA plans to launch a $690 million space telescope next week could change your mind. Managed by scientists at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST) will spend five to 10 years probing things that blow up and crash into each other: gamma rays that explode, cosmic rays that bombard us and jets of energy that shoot out of black holes and speed through space in mystifying patterns.

If you think of the heavens as a peaceful place, with planets revolving around stars in timeless, predictable patterns, NASA plans to launch a $690 million space telescope next week could change your mind. Managed by scientists at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST) will spend five to 10 years probing things that blow up and crash into each other: gamma rays that explode, cosmic rays that bombard us and jets of energy that shoot out of black holes and speed through space in mystifying patterns.

LOS ANGELES -- Scientists have solved one of the most elusive mysteries of the universe, tracing the cause of the brilliant flashes of cosmic radiation known as short gamma-ray bursts to the collision of neutron stars. When two of the super-dense, burned-out stars slam into each other, they emit gamma rays that release more energy in a fraction of a second than the sun has produced in its entire history, according to a series of papers published today in the journal Nature. "Our observations do not prove the ... model, but we surely have found a lady with a smoking gun next to a dead body," said California Institute of Technology astronomer Shri Kulkani, who co-authored one of the papers.

WILLIAMSBURG, Va. -- Astrophysicists announced yesterday that they have discovered what appears to be a monster fountain of antimatter erupting outward from the core of the Milky Way.They said the discovery would compel them to alter their image of the disk-shaped galaxy. In the revised image, it is as if a burst of steam were spurting upward from the yolk of a fried egg.The discovery, reported at a meeting in Williamsburg, was made using the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, a satellite launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration six years ago. The four instruments aboard the observatory detect, measure and record gamma rays: invisible rays that have higher energies than all other forms of radiation, including X-rays.

WASHINGTON -- Scientists say a blast of X-rays and gamma %% rays swept Earth last month, sending radiation detectors off the scale on seven satellites, temporarily shutting down two of them. %%%% Astronomers studying the five-minute jolt believe it was triggered by a "starquake" on a tiny but intensely magnetic star, or "magnetar," 20,000 light-years from Earth.The five-minute battering of Earth's atmosphere is being called the first event outside our solar system known to have caused a significant change in Earth's environment -- electrical changes in the upper atmosphere that briefly altered radio communications over half the globe.

LOS ANGELES -- Scientists have solved one of the most elusive mysteries of the universe, tracing the cause of the brilliant flashes of cosmic radiation known as short gamma-ray bursts to the collision of neutron stars. When two of the super-dense, burned-out stars slam into each other, they emit gamma rays that release more energy in a fraction of a second than the sun has produced in its entire history, according to a series of papers published today in the journal Nature. "Our observations do not prove the ... model, but we surely have found a lady with a smoking gun next to a dead body," said California Institute of Technology astronomer Shri Kulkani, who co-authored one of the papers.

PITTSBURGH -- Almost every day, a huge explosion somewhere in outer space sends bursts of high-energy gamma rays sweeping by Earth.Scientists are fascinated by them, and they have lots of theories about what the bursts are and where they come from. But they have almost no answers."We really as yet have no clue to what they are," said Dr. Geoffrey Pendleton of the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.Although they are invisible to humans, the bursts are among the most impressive celestial phenomena detectable from Earth.

An Oakland Mills High School senior was named a semifinalist this month in the Westinghouse Science Talent Search, the second straight year a Howard County student has earned recognition in what is widely considered to be the nation's most prestigious high school science contest.Aaron Bodoh-Creed, 17, was one of the 15 students from Maryland among the contest's 300 semifinalists. This year's competition attracted 1,652 entries from across the country."I'm really excited and honored to be picked as a semifinalist," said the teen-ager, whose project was "The Effects of Cosmological Time Dilation on Gamma Ray Bursts."

WASHINGTON -- A stupendous explosion at the farthest reaches of the universe has dazzled Earth's astrophysicists and ignited a storm of debate about what could have caused such a blast."

Hometown: Baltimore Current members: Eric Jacobsen, lead vocals and guitar; Matt Dorsey, drums and vocals; Mike Liszewski, bass and vocals; Jason Fritch, guitar and vocals. Founded in: 2001 Style: Punk rock Influenced by: The Ramones, The Clash, The Kinks and Screeching Weasel, to name a few. Notable: Forever in pursuit of an audience and a good time, these rockers say they'll play anywhere and everywhere, from basement parties and backyard barbecues to dingy bars and cavernous clubs.

AT LEAST five times in the Earth's history, near as scientists can tell, half or more of all plant and animal species were wiped out. They don't know why exactly, but suspect celestial events, such as gamma rays that might have destroyed the Earth's protective atmosphere, exposing all living things below to intense radiation from the sun, followed by a smog-induced ice age. Now, it looks like another mass extinction may be on the horizon - one that...

HACKENSACK, N.J. - The team of inspectors peered into the door of a cargo container that had just arrived at Port Newark and scanned the darkened interior with suspicion. "This is a definite winner," said Kevin McCabe, a chief inspector who runs the U.S. Customs Service's contraband unit at the Newark and Elizabeth seaports. McCabe turned to the uniformed men beside him. "We're going to have to use a `buster,'" he said, referring to a device used to detect false compartments that could contain drugs - or worse.

Capturing data on the most powerful and mysterious explosions in the universe is a bit like swatting at flies. The blasts, called gamma ray bursts, are usually too quick.Astronomers need hours to swing their telescopes around to record the blasts, which typically last just seconds. And they're left with only a fading afterglow to examine.But a team led by Neil Gehrels of the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt says an orbiting observatory it's proposed to NASA could provide a reliably fast response to gamma ray bursts and simultaneous observations in a variety of wavelengths.

WASHINGTON -- Scientists say a blast of X-rays and gamma %% rays swept Earth last month, sending radiation detectors off the scale on seven satellites, temporarily shutting down two of them. %%%% Astronomers studying the five-minute jolt believe it was triggered by a "starquake" on a tiny but intensely magnetic star, or "magnetar," 20,000 light-years from Earth.The five-minute battering of Earth's atmosphere is being called the first event outside our solar system known to have caused a significant change in Earth's environment -- electrical changes in the upper atmosphere that briefly altered radio communications over half the globe.

WASHINGTON -- A stupendous explosion at the farthest reaches of the universe has dazzled Earth's astrophysicists and ignited a storm of debate about what could have caused such a blast."

|TC GREENBELT -- The space shuttle Atlantis streaked into orbit yesterday morning on a five-day mission to deploy the heaviest U.S. astronomy satellite ever and conduct the first spacewalk by astronauts since 1985.Four months after the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's manned space program was stalled by cracks found in the shuttle fleet's fuel-door hinges, launch director Bob Sieck declared the nearly flawless countdown and liftoff "one of the best, if not the best," in the 39 launches since flights began in 1981.

AT LEAST five times in the Earth's history, near as scientists can tell, half or more of all plant and animal species were wiped out. They don't know why exactly, but suspect celestial events, such as gamma rays that might have destroyed the Earth's protective atmosphere, exposing all living things below to intense radiation from the sun, followed by a smog-induced ice age. Now, it looks like another mass extinction may be on the horizon - one that...

WASHINGTON -- If you're looking for a place to document the decline of science among America's youth, don't come here."Here" is the final round of the Westinghouse Science Talent Search, where today someone will win the high school equivalent of the Nobel Prize. The top award carries a $40,000 college scholarship and all the prestige a youth bound for MIT or Cal Tech could ever want.Yesterday, in a large exhibit hall at the National Academy of Sciences, 30 boys and 10 girls stood by charts, graphs and diagrams that summed up months, sometimes years, of research.

WILLIAMSBURG, Va. -- Astrophysicists announced yesterday that they have discovered what appears to be a monster fountain of antimatter erupting outward from the core of the Milky Way.They said the discovery would compel them to alter their image of the disk-shaped galaxy. In the revised image, it is as if a burst of steam were spurting upward from the yolk of a fried egg.The discovery, reported at a meeting in Williamsburg, was made using the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, a satellite launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration six years ago. The four instruments aboard the observatory detect, measure and record gamma rays: invisible rays that have higher energies than all other forms of radiation, including X-rays.