Facts about Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Mission
- 09
Swift's Gamma-Ray Burst Mission operates continuously in a low Earth orbit at approximately 600 kilometers altitude, allowing it to detect transient events invisible to ground-based telescopes obscured by Earth's atmosphere.
- 08
Swift's ground-based robotic telescope network includes over 400 observatories worldwide that automatically receive burst alerts and conduct follow-up observations within minutes of detection.
- 07
Swift's three-telescope system was designed to observe gamma-ray bursts across wavelengths from gamma rays through ultraviolet and optical light simultaneously.
- 06
Swift's Burst Alert Telescope detects gamma-ray bursts across 2 steradians of sky simultaneously, covering about one-fifth of the entire celestial sphere at any given moment.
- 05
Over 11,000 gamma-ray bursts have been detected by Swift since its launch, making it the most prolific GRB observatory in astronomical history.
- 04
Swift's Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope has observed afterglows from gamma-ray bursts at distances exceeding 13 billion light-years, revealing some of the most distant explosions ever detected.
- 03
In 2005, Swift discovered that gamma-ray bursts can be accompanied by bright X-ray flares occurring minutes to hours after the initial explosion.
- 02
The Swift satellite's X-ray telescope can pinpoint gamma-ray burst locations to within 20 arcseconds, enabling rapid ground-based follow-up observations.
- 01
Launched in November 2004, the Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Mission can locate and observe gamma-ray bursts within 75 seconds of detection.