Astrophysics

Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope

Survey Observatory · Directed · Agency-led · Launched on June 11, 2008 · Extended Mission · LCC: $780M/$1.3B (2025 $)Life-cycle cost: NASA’s reported cost to build, launch, and operate a mission through its prime mission, plus documented partner contributions, in 2025 dollars. Extended missions are not included. Methods · Wikipedia

Scope Active Mission WindowActivePapers published from the first full month after science operations begin through two years after the mission ends. Citations are counted through the third calendar year after each paper appears. For Fermi, papers published September 1, 2008 to January 1, 2024. Methods LifetimeLifetimeEvery tracked publication to date, with every citation to date. For Fermi, papers published from 2008 to November 3, 2026. Methods
Tracked publicationsTracked publications: peer-reviewed papers we found that name the mission or its instruments in their titles, abstracts, or keywords. Papers that used the data without naming it are missed. Methods6,653
CitationsCitations: every citation these publications have drawn to date. Older missions have had longer to collect them. Methods296,196
Citation indices
h-indexh-index: the largest h such that h papers have at least h citations each. It only grows with time, so older missions score higher. Methods210
g-indexg-index: the largest g for which the g most-cited papers together hold at least g² citations. Like the h-index, but it lets the most-cited papers count for more. Methods359
m-indexm-index: a mission’s h-index divided by the years since its first peer-reviewed paper. It falls every 1 January even when nothing else changes; the figure shown is as of November 3, 2026. It also discounts the long operating life that larger missions paid for. Methods11.1
toritori (total research impact, from SciX): for every paper citing one of the mission’s papers, 1 divided by the citing paper’s reference count times the cited paper’s author count, summed, with self-citations removed. It favors citations from papers with short reference lists and from outside the mission’s own authors. Computed over the tracked citation graph, which can be slightly incomplete. Always over every tracked publication to date, whichever scope is chosen. Methods953
riqriq (research impact quotient): 1,000 times the square root of tori, divided by the years since the mission’s first paper. A rate, not a total, so it does not keep growing with age the way the h-index and tori do. Like tori, always over every tracked publication to date. Methods1,543

Publications and citations by year (lifetime)

Publications per yearCumulative citations

Institutional contributions (lifetime)The institutions SciX lists for each paper’s authors, as printed on the paper, located through the Research Organization Registry. A square counts a paper once, however many of its authors worked there. Methods

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Tracked publications over the lifetime (6,653)

All publications CSV · JSON

  1. GW170817: Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Neutron Star Inspiral

    Abbott, B. P., 2017, PhRvL

    10,201 lifetime citations

  2. Multi-messenger Observations of a Binary Neutron Star Merger

    Abbott, B. P., 2017, ApJ

    4,312 lifetime citations

  3. The Large Area Telescope on the Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope Mission

    Atwood, W. B., 2009, ApJ

    4,045 lifetime citations

  4. Gravitational Waves and Gamma-Rays from a Binary Neutron Star Merger: GW170817 and GRB 170817A

    Abbott, B. P., 2017, ApJ

    3,555 lifetime citations

  5. The Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor

    Meegan, Charles, 2009, ApJ

    1,579 lifetime citations

  6. Fermi Large Area Telescope Third Source Catalog

    Acero, F., 2015, ApJS

    1,551 lifetime citations

  7. Fermi Large Area Telescope Fourth Source Catalog

    Abdollahi, S., 2020, ApJS

    1,511 lifetime citations

  8. An Ordinary Short Gamma-Ray Burst with Extraordinary Implications: Fermi-GBM Detection of GRB 170817A

    Goldstein, A., 2017, ApJ

    1,510 lifetime citations

  9. Fermi Large Area Telescope Second Source Catalog

    Nolan, P. L., 2012, ApJS

    1,413 lifetime citations

  10. Searching for Dark Matter Annihilation from Milky Way Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxies with Six Years of Fermi Large Area Telescope Data

    Ackermann, M., 2015, PhRvL

    1,336 lifetime citations

  11. Swope Supernova Survey 2017a (SSS17a), the optical counterpart to a gravitational wave source

    Coulter, D. A., 2017, Sci

    1,159 lifetime citations

  12. Fermi Large Area Telescope First Source Catalog

    Abdo, A. A., 2010, ApJS

    1,039 lifetime citations

  13. VISTA Variables in the Via Lactea (VVV): The public ESO near-IR variability survey of the Milky Way

    Minniti, D., 2010, NewA

    1,036 lifetime citations

  14. The Spectral Energy Distribution of Fermi Bright Blazars

    Abdo, A. A., 2010, ApJ

    1,034 lifetime citations

  15. Giant Gamma-ray Bubbles from Fermi-LAT: Active Galactic Nucleus Activity or Bipolar Galactic Wind?

    Su, Meng, 2010, ApJ

    1,033 lifetime citations

  16. Evidence for Strong Extragalactic Magnetic Fields from Fermi Observations of TeV Blazars

    Neronov, Andrii, 2010, Sci

    1,004 lifetime citations

  17. Measurement of the Cosmic Ray e⁺+e⁻ Spectrum from 20GeV to 1TeV with the Fermi Large Area Telescope

    Abdo, A. A., 2009, PhRvL

    932 lifetime citations

  18. INTEGRAL Detection of the First Prompt Gamma-Ray Signal Coincident with the Gravitational-wave Event GW170817

    Savchenko, V., 2017, ApJ

    916 lifetime citations

  19. The Second Fermi Large Area Telescope Catalog of Gamma-Ray Pulsars

    Abdo, A. A., 2013, ApJS

    884 lifetime citations

  20. The Internal-collision-induced Magnetic Reconnection and Turbulence (ICMART) Model of Gamma-ray Bursts

    Zhang, Bing, 2011, ApJ

    817 lifetime citations

How we found these papers

We searched NASA’s Science Explorer (SciX) for peer-reviewed articles naming Fermi in the title, abstract or keywords; standard filters drop articles that are not peer-reviewed and magazine pieces.

((facility:Fermi OR =abs:("Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope" OR "Fermi telescope" OR "Fermi observatory" OR "Fermi satellite" OR "Fermi spacecraft" OR "Fermi bubble" OR "Fermi bubbles" OR "Fermi LAT" OR "Fermi GBM" OR "Fermi data" OR "Fermi observations" OR "Large Area Telescope" OR "Gamma-ray Burst Monitor" OR "Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope" OR "GLAST Burst Monitor") OR (=abs:glast AND abs:(gamma OR telescope OR LAT OR GBM)) OR (abs:(LAT OR GBM) AND (=abs:("gamma-ray" OR "gamma-rays") OR abs:(GRB OR blazar OR pulsar))) OR (collection:astronomy AND =abs:Fermi AND (=abs:("gamma-ray" OR "gamma-rays" OR "X-ray" OR "X-rays") OR abs:(GRB OR blazar OR pulsar OR flare OR HESS OR "dark matter" OR "BL Lac" OR telescope OR satellite OR observatory OR spacecraft)) AND NOT =abs:("free-electron laser" OR "free electron laser" OR "FERMI FEL" OR "Fermi first order" OR Fermilab OR "Fermi scale" OR "Fermi ball" OR "Fermi balls" OR "Fermi liquids" OR "Fermi and betatron" OR "Fermi energy" OR "Fermi surface" OR "Fermi surfaces" OR "Fermi gas" OR "Fermi liquid" OR "Fermi statistics" OR "Fermi-Dirac" OR "Fermi paradox" OR "Fermi-Walker" OR "Fermi coordinates" OR "Fermi normal" OR "Fermi frame" OR "Fermi sea" OR "Fermi level" OR "Fermi momentum" OR "Fermi velocity" OR "Fermi arc" OR "Fermi arcs" OR "Fermi acceleration" OR "Fermi process" OR "Fermi mechanism" OR "first-order Fermi" OR "second-order Fermi" OR "Fermi-I" OR "Fermi-II" OR "fast-Fermi" OR "Fermi-like" OR "Thomas-Fermi" OR "Chandrasekhar-Fermi" OR "Fermi contact" OR "Fermi edge" OR "Fermi sphere" OR "Fermi spheres" OR "Fermi energization" OR "Fermi golden rule")))) AND property:refereed AND doctype:article AND pubdate:[2008-09 TO 2040-01] AND NOT bibstem:("A&R" OR "ACPD" OR "AIASJ" OR "AMTD" OR "AeAm" OR "AirSp" OR "AsNow" OR "AsUAI" OR "AvWST" OR "BGD" OR "C&E" OR "C&T" OR "CAPJ" OR "CliPD" OR "E&S" OR "ENews" OR "ESDD" OR "ESSDD" OR "ESuDD" OR "GID" OR "GMDD" OR "GeCAS" OR "HESSD" OR "IrAJ" OR "JCos" OR "JRASC" OR "LAstr" OR "MNSSA" OR "Met" OR "NHESD" OR "NPGD" OR "NewSc" OR "OcScD" OR "Orion" OR "PhT" OR "PhTea" OR "PhuZ" OR "PhyOJ" OR "PhyW" OR "PlR" OR "SOILD" OR "SciAm" OR "SpFl" OR "TCD" OR "ZemVs")

Open in SciX

Added after review (1)

  1. Implications of Plasma Beam Instabilities for the Statistics of the Fermi Hard Gamma-Ray Blazars and the Origin of the Extragalactic Gamma-Ray Background Models the gamma-ray blazar population against Fermi luminosity and background constraints. Decision 🤖

Removed after review (22)

  1. A Cosmic Radiation Modular Telescope on the Moon: The MoonRay Concept Concept study for a lunar cosmic-ray telescope; cites Fermi only for comparison. Decision 🤖
  2. The CALorimetric Electron Telescope (CALET) space experiment for the direct measurement of high energy electrons in cosmic rays Describes the CALET experiment; its gamma-ray burst monitor is not Fermi's. Decision 🤖
  3. Omniscopes: Large area telescope arrays with only Nlog⁡N computational cost "Large area telescope" here means radio antenna arrays, not Fermi's LAT. Decision 🤖
  4. Particle Injection and Nonthermal Particle Acceleration in Relativistic Magnetic Reconnection "Fermi" here names a particle-acceleration process, not the spacecraft. Decision 🤖
  5. Formation and Abundance of Late-forming Primordial Black Holes as Dark Matter "Fermi" here refers to fermion physics, not the spacecraft. Decision 🤖
  6. The CALorimetric Electron Telescope (CALET) on the International Space Station Describes the CALET experiment; its gamma-ray burst monitor is not Fermi's. Decision 🤖
  7. Dynamics of millicharged dark matter in supernova remnants "Fermi" here names a particle-acceleration process, not the spacecraft. Decision 🤖
  8. Energetic Electron Acceleration in Unconfined Reconnection Jets "Fermi" here names a particle-acceleration process, not the spacecraft. Decision 🤖
  9. Gamma-Ray Burst in Swift and Fermi Era Editorial introduction to a journal special issue; not a research paper. Decision 🤖
  10. Ion Acoustic Solitons in Dense Magnetized Plasmas with Nonrelativistic and Ultrarelativistic Degenerate Electrons and Positrons "Fermi" here refers to degenerate plasma physics, not the spacecraft. Decision 🤖
  11. The food-associated fungal neurotoxin ochratoxin A inhibits the absorption of glutamate by astrocytes through a decrease in cell surface expression of the excitatory amino-acid transporters GLAST and GLT-1 GLAST here is a protein in brain cells, not the spacecraft. Decision 🤖
  12. Fermionic halos at finite temperature in AdS/CFT "Fermi" here refers to fermion physics, not the spacecraft. Decision 🤖
  13. Silicon detectors in space for γ-ray astroparticle physics Pre-launch description of silicon gamma-ray detectors; reports no results. Decision 🤖
  14. The EEE project - Science in schools: state and results "Fermi" here names a research centre supporting a ground muon array. Decision 🤖
  15. Generation of an immortalized astrocytic cell line from Abcd1-deficient H-2KᵇtsA58 mice to facilitate the study of the role of astrocytes in X-linked adrenoleukodystrophy GLAST here is a protein in brain cells, not the spacecraft. Decision 🤖
  16. Ultra-Low-L Sub-MeV Electron Microbursts During the May 2024 Super Storm Uses CALET's gamma-ray burst monitor on the ISS, not Fermi's. Decision 🤖
  17. Observing the thermalization of dark matter in neutron stars "Fermi" here refers to degenerate matter in neutron stars, not the spacecraft. Decision 🤖
  18. Exotic Compact Objects with Two Dark Matter Fluids "Fermi" here refers to fermion physics, not the spacecraft. Decision 🤖
  19. Interaction of curcumin with glioblastoma cells via high and low linear energy transfer radiation therapy inducing radiosensitization effects GBM here means glioblastoma, not Fermi's burst monitor. Decision 🤖
  20. Electronic Logbook for Space System Integration & Test Operations Logbook software for pre-launch integration and testing; reports no data. Decision 🤖
  21. Electron Acceleration during Macroscale Magnetic Reconnection "Fermi" here names a particle-acceleration process, not the spacecraft. Decision 🤖
  22. The Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) High-energy X-Ray Mission Mission description of NuSTAR; mentions Fermi only as a partner for coordinated observations. Decision 🤖