Enlarge / Artist’s illustration of the COSI spacecraft. (credit score: Northrop Grumman/European Southern Observatory (background picture))
A small analysis satellite tv for pc designed to review the violent processes behind the creation and destruction of chemical components will launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in 2027, NASA introduced Tuesday.
The Compton Spectrometer and Imager (COSI) mission encompasses a gamma-ray telescope that can scan the sky to review gamma-rays emitted by the explosions of huge stars and the tip of their lives. These supernova explosions generate reactions that fuse new atomic nuclei, a course of referred to as nucleosynthesis, of heavier components.
Utilizing information from COSI, scientists will map the place these components are forming within the Milky Approach galaxy. COSI’s observations may also yield new insights into the annihilation of positrons, the antimatter equal of electrons, which seem like originating from the middle of the galaxy. One other purpose for COSI will probably be to quickly report the situation of quick gamma-ray bursts, unimaginably violent explosions that flash after which fade in simply a few seconds. These bursts are seemingly attributable to merging neutron stars.
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