Sadly, it can’t actually be seen by the naked human eye.
For the past 10 years, NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has been floating around the Earth, allowing scientists to see things they otherwise would never be able to. The telescope scans the sky every single day, “mapping and measuring sources of gamma rays, the highest-energy light in the universe.” In celebration of the telescope’s 10 year anniversary, NASA’s scientists have devised a brand new set of *unofficial* constellations, including one in the shape of Godzilla. Yes, the King of the Monsters has been spotted in the gamma ray sky!
“Developing these unofficial constellations was a fun way to highlight a decade of Fermi’s accomplishments,” said Julie McEnery, the Fermi project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “One way or another, all of the gamma-ray constellations have a tie-in to Fermi science.”
“By 2015, the number of different sources mapped by Fermi’s LAT had expanded to about 3,000 — 10 times the number known before the mission,” said Goddard’s Elizabeth Ferrara, who led the constellation project. “For the first time ever, the number of known gamma-ray sources was comparable to the number of bright stars, so we thought a new set of constellations was a great way to illustrate the point.”
In total, 21 new constellations have been conceived by the team, with others representing Mount Fuji, the Starship Enterprise, Schrodinger’s Cat and the Colosseum.
You can virtually explore the constellations over on Fermi’s website!
