The Great Escape

December 15, 2015

Barnard VERITAS members measure ancient light from early stars in our Universe using gamma rays.

In a galaxy (really) far, far away—more than half way across the visible universe or at least 7.6 billion light years—a flood of light (high-energy gamma rays from a blazar) began its trip to Earth. Light from the blazar*, captured in April by NASA's Fermi satellite and the VERITAS and MAGIC telescopes in Amado, Arizona, and in the Canary Islands, Spain, respectively, is one of the farthest sources of high-energy light detected by a gamma-ray telescope on the ground from a galaxy, named PKS 1441+25, so distant.  

Check the publication out at this link GAMMA-RAYS FROM THE QUASAR PKS 1441+25: STORY OF AN ESCAPE

Columbia Affiliations
VERITAS research at Barnard College & Columbia University is supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation