MAGIC (telescope)

MAGIC (Major Atmospheric Gamma Imaging Cherenkov Telescopes, later renamed to MAGIC Florian Goebel Telescopes) is a system of two Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes situated at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on La Palma, one of the Canary Islands, at about 2200 m above sea level. MAGIC detects particle showers released by gamma rays, using the Cherenkov radiation, i.e., faint light radiated by the charged particles in the showers. With a diameter of 17 meters for the reflecting surface, it was the largest in the world before the construction of H.E.S.S. II. The first telescope was built in 2004 and operated for five years in standalone mode. A second MAGIC telescope (MAGIC-II), at a distance of 85 m from the first one, started taking data in July 2009. Together they integrate the MAGIC telescope stereoscopic system. MAGIC is sensitive to cosmic gamma rays with photon energies between 50 GeV (later lowered to 25 GeV) and 30 TeV due to its large mirror; other ground-based gamma-ray telescopes typically observe gamma energies above 200–300 GeV. Gamma-ray astronomy also utilizes satellite-based detectors, which can detect gamma-rays in the energy range from keV up to several GeV. The goals of the telescope are to detect and study primarily photons coming from: Accretion of black holes in active galactic nuclei Supernova remnants, due to their interest as sources of cosmic rays. Other galactic sources such as pulsar wind nebulae or X-ray binaries. Unidentified EGRET or Fermi sources Gamma ray bursts Annihilation of dark matter MAGIC has found pulsed gamma-rays at energies higher than 25 GeV coming from the Crab Pulsar. The presence of such high energies indicates that the gamma-ray source is far out in the pulsar's magnetosphere, in contradiction with many models. In 2006 MAGIC detected very high energy cosmic rays from the quasar 3C 279, which is 5 billion light years from Earth. This doubles the previous record distance from which very high energy cosmic rays have been detected.