Earlier this April, NASA's Compton Gamma Ray Observatory [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…], completed its fifth successful year in orbit, exploring the gamma ray [ http://heasarc.gsfc…] sky [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…]. Pictured is astronaut Jay Apt [ http://www.jsc.nasa…] perched in the shuttle payload bay below the massive observatory. Compton [ http://heasarc.gsfc…] is the largest civilian instrument ever flown - the whole observatory is roughly the size of a school bus. Apt and colleague Jerry Ross [ http://www.jsc.nasa…] rescued the spacecraft from an unexpected problem by successfully freeing the stuck high gain antenna in an unplanned space walk. The second of NASA's planned Great Observatories for Space Astrophysics [ http://spacelink.ms…Proposed.Projects/NA SA.in.the.1990s ], the first being the Hubble Space Telescope [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…], the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory [ http://heasarc.gsfc…] has exceeded expectations of scientific discovery [ http://heasarc.gsfc…]. Compton continues to search the depths of the universe for such high energy phenomena as gamma-ray bursts [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…], blazars [ http://heasarc.gsfc…], and pulsars [ http://heasarc.gsfc…]. Compton is still monitoring a new source [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] it discovered just last December - the spectacular "bursting pulsar" [ http://space.mit.ed…] near the center of our Galaxy [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…].
Explanation
Earlier this April, NASA's Compton Gamma Ray Observatory [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…], completed its fifth successful year in orbit, exploring the gamma ray [ http://heasarc.gsfc…] sky [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…]. Pictured is astronaut Jay Apt [ http://www.jsc.nasa…] perched in the shuttle payload bay below the massive observatory. Compton [ http://heasarc.gsfc…] is the largest civilian instrument ever flown - the whole observatory is roughly the size of a school bus. Apt and colleague Jerry Ross [ http://www.jsc.nasa…] rescued the spacecraft from an unexpected problem by successfully freeing the stuck high gain antenna in an unplanned space walk. The second of NASA's planned Great Observatories for Space Astrophysics [ http://spacelink.ms…Proposed.Projects/NA SA.in.the.1990s ], the first being the Hubble Space Telescope [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…], the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory [ http://heasarc.gsfc…] has exceeded expectations of scientific discovery [ http://heasarc.gsfc…]. Compton continues to search the depths of the universe for such high energy phenomena as gamma-ray bursts [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…], blazars [ http://heasarc.gsfc…], and pulsars [ http://heasarc.gsfc…]. Compton is still monitoring a new source [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] it discovered just last December - the spectacular "bursting pulsar" [ http://space.mit.ed…] near the center of our Galaxy [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…].
