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
May 10, 2009 GRB090510
May 9, 2009 GRB090509 April 29, 2009 GRB090429B + Swift Bursts from the First Four Years of Swift + Data Table of Swift Bursts + GCN Circulars Archive + GRB Skymap Latest Swift News
NASA's Swift satellite and an international team of astronomers have found a gamma-ray burst from a star that died when the universe was only 630 million years old, or less than five percent of its present age. The event, dubbed GRB 090423, is the most distant cosmic explosion ever seen. A montage of comet images made using NASA's Swift spacecraft illustrates just how different three comets can be. The images, including a never-released image of Comet 8P/Tuttle, were shown today during a live, 24-hour video webcast called "Around the World in 80 Telescopes." Organized by the European Southern Observatory headquartered in Garching, Germany, the webcast is part of the 100 Hours of Astronomy project, a worldwide celebration of astronomy running through April 5. 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. |
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