GLAST telescope to open new window on the universe

0 Comments | AFP, June, 2008

WASHINGTON (AFP) — A hi-tech telescope NASA plans to launch on Wednesday hopes to fling open a new window on the Universe, exploring extreme sources of gamma-rays that point to powerful and exotic phenomena.

The Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope, or GLAST, will search for energy blasts that point to black holes and other beasts, and hunt for clues to explain the strange, magnetized neutron stars known as pulsars.

The telescope may also unlock the mysteries of dark matter, which comprises about 25 percent of mass in the Universe but is invisible to the naked eye, compared with the five percent of visible matter.

The remaining 70 percent is known as "dark energy," a little understood phenomenon which is believed to speed the expansion of the Universe....