Contact: Henric Krawczynski
krawcz@wuphys.wustl.edu
314-803-8732
Washington University in St. Louis

VERITAS Telescopes Involved in Detecting Gamma Rays from Supermassive Black Hole

Caption: The Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System (VERITAS) is a collection of four 12-meter Cherenkov telescopes used to detect astrophysical sources of very-high-energy gamma rays. The telescopes are scanning the night sky searching for remnants of exploded stars, distant active galaxies, powerful gamma ray bursts, and evidence of mysterious Dark Matter particles. VERITAS was one of three major gamma-ray observatories and the Very Long Baseline Array that detects radio waves involved in observations of very-high-energy gamma rays coming from the edge of a supermassive black hole. VERITAS is located at the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory south of Tucson, Ariz., and is operated by a collaboration of more than 100 scientists from about 20 different institutions in the United States, Ireland, England and Canada.

Credit: Photo by S. Criswell, VERITAS

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