Description
The High Energy Stereoscopic System (H.E.S.S.) is an array of 5 Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes (IACTs), located near Windhoek, Namibia, sensitive to very-high-energy (VHE) gamma rays with energies above ~100 GeV. It is the World’s largest and most sensitive ground-based gamma-ray telescope system and scientifically hugely successful in many different fields of high-energy astrophysics, including time-domain and multi-messenger astronomy. A successor, the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA), is being constructed in Chile and La Palma but the World’s largest IACT will remain unrivalled in the foreseeable future. This, together with H.E.S.S.’s capabilities for and the importance of time-domain astronomy as well as the favourable aspect of time-zone difference, being able to observe 8 hours ahead of CTA south in Chile, makes it most desirable to keep H.E.S.S. in operation even after the CTA becomes operational.
Additional Information
Galactic and Extragalactic Astronomy; Transients and Pulsars
| Primary Category | Astrophysics & Cosmology |
|---|---|
| Secondary Category | NONE |
| Subgroup categories | Astro&Cosmo—High-energy astrophysics and astro-particle physics |
| Did you / will you submit this LOI to another category? | NO |
