A space telescope that will open a new window on the Universe blasted off from Cape Canaveral today, promising fresh insights into some of the most extreme phenomena in the cosmos.

The Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (Glast), was launched on a Delta II rocket at 5.05pm, after a short delay caused by a faulty battery that needed to be replaced.

From orbit, Glast will give astronomers their best opportunity yet to study gamma-rays, a form of radiation often given off by some of the most exotic objects in the Universe.

Targets will include the most powerful explosions known to science, known as gamma-ray bursts, which release as much energy in a second as the Sun will emit in its entire lifespan of up to ten billion years.

Glast will also observe supermassive black holes that generate powerful jets of matter moving at close to the speed of light, to investigate how this acceleration takes place. It could also provide clues to the nature of dark matter — the mysterious substance thought to comprise about a quarter of the Universe’s mass, which cannot yet be detected.

The observatory will be a significant upgrade to the best existing orbiting gamma-ray telescope — the Egret unit housed on the Compton space telescope. It should be capable of making observations in days that took Egret years.

“If Glast were a piano, it would have about 23 octaves,” said Steven Ritz, of Nasa’s Goddard Space Science Centre, who is the project’s chief scientist. “Glast enables scientists to look under the hood and see how the universe works.

“There’s a broad science community that’s anxiously awaiting this launch. It’s about to open up the Universe to us in new and exciting ways.”

David Thompson, a project scientist at the Goddard centre, said: “We’ve only scratched the surface of the how and why of these gamma-ray phenomena. We have a lot to learn about how they work, and, more importantly, how these objects and phenomena affect the Universe. This is where Glast comes in.”

In its first year of operations, Glast will concentrate on using its high sensitivity to create a new map of the skies, which is expected to reveal between 5,000 and 10,000 new sources of gamma-rays.

Dr Thompson said the $690 million (£350 million) telescope would transform science’s view of the heavens. “Glast will give us a spectacular high-energy gamma-ray vision,” he said.

“The Universe looks remarkably different outside the narrow range of colors in the spectrum that we can see with our eyes ...The Milky Way would be a brilliant swath of light, and you would see a sky constantly changing with objects dimming and brightening on different times scales.”

Times Recommends

• Secret files show Thatcher's role in coup plot
• Veterans to boycott Shell after ban on poppy sales
• 'I survived so please let Baby RB live too'