The Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Mission
With Swift, a NASA mission with international participation, scientists will now have a tool dedicated to answering these questions and solving the gamma-ray burst mystery. Its three instruments will give scientists the ability to scrutinize gamma-ray bursts like never before. Within seconds of detecting a burst, Swift will relay a burst's location to ground stations, allowing both ground-based and space-based telescopes around the world the opportunity to observe the burst's afterglow. Swift is part of NASA's medium explorer (MIDEX) program and was launched into a low-Earth orbit on a Delta 7320 rocket on November 20, 2004.
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Swift Resources
Latest Swift Gamma-Ray Bursts
November 17, 2009 GRB091117
November 12, 2009 GRB091112 November 9, 2009 GRB091109B + Swift Bursts from the First Four Years of Swift + Data Table of Swift Bursts + GCN Circulars Archive + GRB Skymap Latest Swift News
While astronomers have studied lightweight and heavyweight black holes for decades, the evidence for black holes with intermediate masses has been much harder to come by. Now, astronomers at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., find that an X-ray source in galaxy NGC 5408 represents one of the best cases for a middleweight black hole to date. As of 16:30 UT 22-Sep-2009, Swift is back to normal operations (GCN Circular 9928). Due to a software problem, the BAT instrument stopped processing science data at about 10:30 UT on 17 Sept. 2009 (GCN Circular 9922). As a consequence BAT is not detecting new GRBs at this time, and UVOT is not making observation. XRT is largely unaffected and continues to observe the usual schedule of pre-planned targets. The BAT problem is understood, and we expect to restore Swift to normal operations in a few days. If you're a Swift Team or Project member looking for the Team or Project sites, try: NOTE: you will need your Team or Project username and password to access these sites. |
Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are the most powerful explosions the Universe has seen since the Big Bang. They occur approximately once per day and are brief, but intense, flashes of gamma radiation. They come from all different directions of the sky and last from a few milliseconds to a few hundred seconds. So far scientists do not know what causes them. Do they signal the birth of a black hole in a massive stellar explosion? Are they the product of the collision of two neutron stars? Or is it some other exotic phenomenon that causes these bursts?
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