AstroPix gamma-ray sensors to fly on robotic demonstration mission

AstroPix, a new gamma-ray sensor developed by NASA, will ride on the Fly Foundational Robots mission scheduled to launch in late 2027. Gamma rays are the highest-energy form of light, seen from sources such as lightning in Earth’s atmosphere, powerful solar flares, and distant cosmic collisions.

The AstroPix sensors are designed to measure gamma rays between 20,000 and 700,000 electron volts, while visible light falls between about 2 and 3 electron volts. Existing missions like the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope and the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory detect gamma rays at even higher energies, but detectors are less sensitive between about 500,000 and 1,000,000 electron volts.

That band is where many gamma-ray bursts and the brightest emission from distant, massive active galaxies appear, and stacking AstroPix detectors on future missions could bridge the gap and improve observations of those phenomena.

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