GSFC: Swift Catches 500th Gamma-ray Burst

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GSFC: Swift Catches 500th Gamma-ray Burst

Post by bystander » Tue Apr 20, 2010 2:55 am

Swift Catches 500th Gamma-ray Burst
NASA GSFC - 19 April 2010
  • Swift GRB highlights

    April 13, 2010: NASA's Swift discovers its 500th burst. GRB 100413B is a long burst in the constellation Cassiopeia.

    April 23, 2009: GRB 090423 in Leo holds the record for the farthest burst yet known -- 13.04 billion light-years away. "The burst is beyond the farthest confirmed galaxies and quasars, making it the most distant object we know in the universe today," Fox said. This find validates models suggesting that galaxy and star formation were well under way in the universe's first billion years and that some early stars died as bursts.

    March 19, 2008: GRB 080319B, in Boötes, is truly extraordinary. It produces enough light to be seen briefly with the unaided eye, cresting at visual magnitude 5.3 despite occurring 7.5 billion light-years away -- or more than halfway across the visible universe. Scientists conclude that one of its particle jets appears to have been aimed squarely at Earth.

    July 14, 2007: GRB 070714B explodes in Taurus. Afterglow observations indicate a distance of 7.3 billion light-years, making this one of the farthest short bursts to date.

    Feb. 18, 2006: GRB 060218 explodes in Aries 450 million light-years away -- in our back yard, cosmically speaking. Although faint, the burst emits detectable gamma rays for more than 40 minutes and detectable optical and X-ray emission lasts more than 10 days. The event is a hybrid, showing characteristics of both a GRB and a supernova, and leads to the best observations yet exploring connections between these phenomena.

    Sept. 4, 2005: At a distance of 12.77 billion light-years, GRB 050904, located in Pisces, is the farthest-known GRB at the time, the first of many such Swift records.

    May 9, 2005: GRB 050509B, in Coma Berenices, erupts with a flash of gamma-rays that lasts just 0.03 second. Swift turns to the burst fast enough to detect 11 X-ray photons, making this the first short burst with a detected afterglow.

    Dec. 17, 2004: Swift's first burst, in Crater, is eight-second-long GRB 041217.
Image
This all-sky map shows the locations of Swift's 500 gamma-ray bursts,
color coded by the year in which they occurred. In the background,
an infrared image shows the location of our galaxy and its largest
satellites. (NASA/2MASS/Swift/Francis Reddy)

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