Summary

Description	More than thirty years since their accidental discovery, gamma-ray bursts are still a mystery to scientists. These brief, fierce explosions occur randomly each day, making them very hard to study. But NASA's Swift spacecraft and its trio of telescopes will leave gamma-ray bursts nowhere to hide. The highly sensitive Burst Alert Telescope will be the first instrument to detect a new blast. It will feed this information to the X-ray Telescope and UltraViolet_Optical Telescope, which will further pinpoint the burst's location. Using light energy data, known as spectra, the X-ray Telescope will reveal more about the environment between us and the explosion, and what chemicals were produced. The UltraViolet_Optical Telescope will also take pictures of the bursts in ultraviolet and visible light. Swift is expected to study about 100 gamma-ray bursts a year.
Date	2004-09-23
Source	images.nasa.gov

Licensing

Public Domain (US Government Work)