Peter Michelson, Stanford University 
February 25, 2014

The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, with its continuous and broad view of the high energy sky draws our attention to the most exotic environments in the observable universe. The gamma-ray sources -- blazars, pulsars, gamma-ray bursts, novae, supernova remnants -- are the sites of extreme cosmic accelerators; Fermi alerts us to dramatic variability in these sources and also provides a new probe of basic physics. From its broad high sensitivity search for dark matter in dwarf galaxies to its collection of terrestrial gamma-ray flashes, the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) provides a unique view of a wide range of cosmic phenomena. Discovery highlights will be discussed as well as the increasingly sophisticated tools needed to extract maximum information from Fermi observations and the growing synergy with observations across the electromagnetic spectrum that are needed to decipher the true nature of the high-energy photon sources

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