{"id":512130,"date":"2026-10-29T19:32:06","date_gmt":"2026-10-29T19:32:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/512130\/"},"modified":"2026-10-29T19:32:06","modified_gmt":"2026-10-29T19:32:06","slug":"watch-built-at-berkeley-bound-for-space-to-measure-exploded-stars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/512130\/","title":{"rendered":"Watch: Built at Berkeley, bound for space \u2013\u2013 to measure exploded stars"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In the latest segment of our ongoing series <a href=\"https:\/\/news.berkeley.edu\/topics\/born-at-berkeley\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Born at UC Berkeley,<\/a> Angela Zhang (class of \u201926) suits up to learn about Berkeley\u2019s newest satellite: the Compton Spectrometer and Imager (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ssl.berkeley.edu\/projects\/cosi\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">COSI<\/a>). Funded by NASA, it is one of a long string of satellites and space missions designed, built and operated at the campus\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ssl.berkeley.edu\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Space Sciences Laboratory<\/a>. Scientists at the lab must wear bunny suits to prevent dust from getting into the sensitive optical system of the satellite, which should launch into Earth orbit next year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/news.berkeley.edu\/2021\/10\/25\/uc-berkeley-scientists-to-lead-nasas-newest-space-telescope\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">COSI mission<\/a>, led by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ssl.berkeley.edu\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">John Tomsick<\/a>, SSL associate director for astrophysics and exoplanets, is designed to scan the skies for gamma rays \u2014 very energetic photons of light emitted in the aftermath of supernovas as the elements created in the explosion decay. But gamma rays are also created when electrons encounter their antimatter counterpart, a positron, and annihilate into pure energy.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">By mapping gamma rays in the Milky Way Galaxy, Tomsick and his team hope to understand why there are more positrons around than people thought, and answer questions about the origin of the chemical elements in our galaxy \u2014 elements critical to the formation of Earth.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As with most SSL missions, undergraduates and graduate students play a big role in building and testing the instruments. Through internships and fellowships, SSL is training a new generation of space scientists and engineers poised to make the next great cosmic discoveries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the latest segment of our ongoing series Born at UC Berkeley, Angela Zhang (class of \u201926) suits&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":512131,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[94711,188154,143,145,144,6080,102610],"class_list":["post-512130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-astronomy-and-space-sciences","tag-born-at-berkeley","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-research","tag-uc-berkeley-news-videos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=512130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512130\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/512131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=512130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=512130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=512130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}