COSI

Compton Spectrometer and Imager

Future Mission

COSI is a wide-field gamma-ray telescope that will study energetic phenomena in the Milky Way and beyond, including the creation and destruction of matter and antimatter and the final stages of the lives of stars. The mission is a collaboration between the University of California, Berkeley’s Space Sciences Laboratory, the University of California, San Diego, the Naval Research Laboratory, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, and Northrop Grumman.

Type

Space telescope

Launch

2027

Wavelength

Gamma rays

predecessor

COSI scientific balloon payload

The COSI gamma ray telescope, shown in this artist’s concept, will map the Milky Way galaxy to find sources of gamma ray emission, which is expected to include remnants of supernova explosions, accreting black holes and the mergers of neutron stars. The background image is an image of the material ejected during a supernova explosion.

Credit: Image by Jim Willis, courtesy of Northrop Grumman Corporation ½ Space Systems; background image courtesy of European Southern Observatory