About High Energy Stereoscopic System (HESS) observatory:
- It is an array of Cherenkov Telescopes located in the Khomas Highlands in Namibia.
- It started operations in 2003 and has been operated very successfully since then.
- It observes gamma rays, the most energetic form of light, in the very high energy range (>100 GeV), which are produced by some of the most violent processes in the universe.
- Being in the southern hemisphere, it is very well located for observations of gamma-ray sources within our galaxy, the Milky Way.
- Since gamma rays cannot penetrate the Earth's atmosphere,it detects them indirectly via their interactions with the air molecules.
- Besides sources from our Milky Way sources, it has a rich and wide physics program, covering also outbursts in very distant galaxies and fundamental physics questions related to dark matter and Lorentz invariance.
- The HESS observatory is operated by a collaboration of more than 260 scientists from about 40 scientific institutions and 13 different countries.
