NASA - Swift updates

[jacqmans]

Robert Naeye                                                                                      July 30, 2007
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
301-286-4453   

RELEASE NO. 07-40

JAPANESE AND NASA SATELLITES UNVEIL NEW TYPE OF ACTIVE GALAXY

GREENBELT, Md. – An international team of astronomers using NASA’s Swift satellite and the Japanese/U.S. Suzaku X-ray observatory has discovered a new class of active galactic nuclei (AGN).

By now, you’d think that astronomers would have found all the different classes of AGN — extraordinarily energetic cores of galaxies powered by accreting supermassive black holes. AGN such as quasars, blazars, and Seyfert galaxies are among the most luminous objects in our Universe, often pouring out the energy of billions of stars from a region no larger than our solar system.

But by using Swift and Suzaku, the team has discovered that a relatively common class of AGN has escaped detection…until now. These objects are so heavily shrouded in gas and dust that virtually no light gets out.

"This is an important discovery because it will help us better understand why some supermassive black holes shine and others don’t," says astronomer and team member Jack Tueller of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

Evidence for this new type of AGN began surfacing over the past two years. Using Swift’s Burst Alert Telescope (BAT), a team led by Tueller has found several hundred relatively nearby AGNs that were previously missed because their visible and ultraviolet light was smothered by gas and dust. The BAT was able to detect high-energy X-rays from these heavily blanketed AGNs because, unlike visible light, high-energy X-rays can punch through thick gas and dust.

To follow up on this discovery, Yoshihiro Ueda of Kyoto University, Japan, Tueller, and a team of Japanese and American astronomers targeted two of these AGNs with Suzaku. They were hoping to determine whether these heavily obscured AGNs are basically the same type of objects as other AGN, or whether they are fundamentally different. The AGNs reside in the galaxies ESO 005-G004 and ESO 297-G018, which are about 80 million and 350 million light-years from Earth, respectively.

Suzaku covers a broader range of X-ray energies than BAT, so astronomers expected Suzaku to see X-rays across a wide swath of the X-ray spectum. But despite Suzaku’s high sensitivity, it detected very few low- or medium-energy X-rays from these two AGN, which explains why previous X-ray AGN surveys missed them.

According to popular models, AGNs are surrounded by a donut-shaped ring of material, which partially obscures our view of the black hole. Our viewing angle with respect to the donut determines what type of object we see. But team member Richard Mushotzky, also at NASA Goddard, thinks these newly discovered AGN are completely surrounded by a shell of obscuring material. "We can see visible light from other types of AGN because there is scattered light," says Mushotzky. "But in these two galaxies, all the light coming from the nucleus is totally blocked."

Another possibility is that these AGN have little gas in their vicinity. In other AGN, the gas scatters light at other wavelengths, which makes the AGN visible even if they are shrouded in obscuring material.

"Our results imply that there must be a large number of yet unrecognized obscured AGNs in the local universe," says Ueda.

In fact, these objects might comprise about 20 percent of point sources comprising the X-ray background, a glow of X-ray radiation that pervades our Universe. NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory has found that this background is actually produced by huge numbers of AGNs, but Chandra was unable to identify the nature of all the sources.

By missing this new class, previous AGN surveys were heavily biased, and thus gave an incomplete picture of how supermassive black holes and their host galaxies have evolved over cosmic history. "We think these black holes have played a crucial role in controlling the formation of galaxies, and they control the flow of matter into clusters," says Tueller. "You can’t understand the universe without understanding giant black holes and what they’re doing. To complete our understanding we must have an unbiased sample."

The discovery paper will appear in the August 1st issue of the Astrophysical Journal Letters.


For related images on this story, please visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2007/active_galaxy.html

More information about Swift can be found at:

http://swift.gsfc.nasa.gov

More information about Suzaku can be found at:

http://suzaku.gsfc.nasa.gov

-end-

[jacqmans]

RELEASE: 08-086

NASA SATELLITE DETECTS RECORD GAMMA RAY BURST EXPLOSION HALFWAY ACROSS UNIVERSE

WASHINGTON - A powerful stellar explosion detected March 19 by NASA's
Swift satellite has shattered the record for the most distant object
that could be seen with the naked eye.

The explosion was a gamma ray burst. Most gamma ray bursts occur when
massive stars run out of nuclear fuel. Their cores collapse to form
black holes or neutron stars, releasing an intense burst of
high-energy gamma rays and ejecting particle jets that rip through
space at nearly the speed of light like turbocharged cosmic
blowtorches. When the jets plow into surrounding interstellar clouds,
they heat the gas, often generating bright afterglows. Gamma ray
bursts are the most luminous explosions in the universe since the big
bang.

"This burst was a whopper," said Swift principal investigator Neil
Gehrels of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "It
blows away every gamma ray burst we've seen so far."

Swift's Burst Alert Telescope picked up the burst at 2:12 a.m. EDT,
March 19, and pinpointed the coordinates in the constellation Bo?tes.
Telescopes in space and on the ground quickly moved to observe the
afterglow. The burst is named GRB 080319B, because it was the second
gamma ray burst detected that day.

Swift's other two instruments, the X-ray Telescope and the
Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope, also observed brilliant afterglows.
Several ground-based telescopes saw the afterglow brighten to visual
magnitudes between 5 and 6 in the logarithmic magnitude scale used by
astronomers. The brighter an object is, the lower its magnitude
number. From a dark location in the countryside, people with normal
vision can see stars slightly fainter than magnitude 6. That means
the afterglow would have been dim, but visible to the naked eye.

Later that evening, the Very Large Telescope in Chile and the
Hobby-Eberly Telescope in Texas measured the burst's redshift at
0.94. A redshift is a measure of the distance to an object. A
redshift of 0.94 translates into a distance of 7.5 billion light
years, meaning the explosion took place 7.5 billion years ago, a time
when the universe was less than half its current age and Earth had
yet to form. This is more than halfway across the visible universe.

"No other known object or type of explosion could be seen by the naked
eye at such an immense distance," said Swift science team member
Stephen Holland of Goddard. "If someone just happened to be looking
at the right place at the right time, they saw the most distant
object ever seen by human eyes without optical aid."

GRB 080319B's optical afterglow was 2.5 million times more luminous
than the most luminous supernova ever recorded, making it the most
intrinsically bright object ever observed by humans in the universe.
The most distant previous object that could have been seen by the
naked eye is the nearby galaxy M33, a relatively short 2.9 million
light-years from Earth.

Analysis of GRB 080319B is just getting underway, so astronomers don't
know why this burst and its afterglow were so bright. One possibility
is the burst was more energetic than others, perhaps because of the
mass, spin, or magnetic field of the progenitor star or its jet. Or
perhaps it concentrated its energy in a narrow jet that was aimed
directly at Earth.

GRB 080319B was one of four bursts that Swift detected, a Swift record
for one day. "Coincidentally, the passing of Arthur C. Clarke seems
to have set the universe ablaze with gamma ray bursts," said Swift
science team member Judith Racusin of Penn State University in
University Park, Pa.

Swift is managed by Goddard. It was built and is being operated in
collaboration with Penn State, the Los Alamos National Laboratory,
and General Dynamics in the U.S.; the University of Leicester and
Mullard Space Sciences Laboratory in the United Kingdom; Brera
Observatory and the Italian Space Agency in Italy; plus partners in
Germany and Japan.

For related images to this story, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/swift

[jacqmans]

May 21, 2008
 
PRESS RELEASE: 08-43

NASA’S SWIFT SATELLITE CATCHES FIRST SUPERNOVA IN THE ACT OF EXPLODING
 
GREENBELT, Md. – Thanks to a fortuitous observation with NASA’s Swift satellite, astronomers for the first time have caught a star in the act of exploding. Astronomers have previously observed thousands of stellar explosions, known as supernovae, but they have always seen them after the fireworks were well underway.

"For years we have dreamed of seeing a star just as it was exploding, but actually finding one is a once in a lifetime event," says team leader Alicia Soderberg, a Hubble and Carnegie-Princeton Fellow at Princeton University in Princeton, N.J. "This newly born supernova is going to be the Rosetta stone of supernova studies for years to come."

A typical supernova occurs when the core of a massive star runs out of nuclear fuel and collapses under its own gravity to form an ultradense object known as a neutron star. The newborn neutron star compresses and then rebounds, triggering a shock wave that plows through the star’s gaseous outer layers and blows the star to smithereens. Astronomers thought for nearly four decades that this shock "break-out" will produce bright X-ray emission lasting a few minutes.

But until this discovery, astronomers have never observed this signal. Instead, they have observed supernovae brightening days or weeks later, when the expanding shell of debris is energized by the decay of radioactive elements forged in the explosion. "Seeing the shock break-out in X-rays can give a direct view of the exploding star in the last minutes of its life and also provide a signpost to which astronomers can quickly point their telescopes to watch the explosion unfold," says Edo Berger, a Carnegie-Princeton Fellow at Princeton University.

Soderberg's discovery of the first shock breakout can be attributed to luck and Swift's unique design. On January 9, 2008, Soderberg and Berger were using Swift to observe a supernova known as SN 2007uy in the spiral galaxy NGC 2770, located 90 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Lynx. At 9:33 a.m. EST they spotted an extremely bright 5-minute X-ray outburst in NGC 2770. They quickly recognized that the X-rays were coming from another location in the same galaxy.

In a paper appearing in the May 22 Nature, Soderberg and 38 colleagues show that the energy and pattern of the X-ray outburst is consistent with a shock wave bursting through the surface of the progenitor star. This marks the birth of the supernova now known as SN 2008D.

Although astronomers were lucky that Swift was observing NGC 2770 just at the moment when SN 2008D’s shock wave was blowing up the star, Swift is well equipped to study such an event because of its multiple instruments observing in gamma rays, X-rays, and ultraviolet light. "It was a gift of nature for Swift to be observing that patch of sky when the supernova exploded. But thanks to Swift's flexibility, we have been able to trace its evolution in detail every day since," says Swift lead scientist Neil Gehrels of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

Due to the significance of the X-ray outburst, Soderberg immediately mounted an international observing campaign to study SN 2008D. Observations were made with major telescopes such as the Hubble Space Telescope, the Chandra X-ray Observatory, the Very Large Array in New Mexico, the Gemini North telescope in Hawaii, the Keck I telescope in Hawaii, the 200-inch and 60-inch telescopes at the Palomar Observatory in California, and the 3.5-meter telescope at the Apache Point Observatory in New Mexico.

The combined observations helped Soderberg and her colleagues pin down the energy of the initial X-ray outburst, which will help theorists better understand supernovae. The observations also show that SN 2008D is an ordinary Type Ibc supernova, which occurs when a massive, compact star explodes. Significantly, radio and X-ray observations found no evidence that a jet played a role in the explosion, ruling out a rare type of stellar explosion known as a gamma-ray burst.

"This was a typical supernova," says Swift team member Stefan Immler of NASA Goddard. "The significance is not the explosion itself, but the fact that we were able to see the star blow up in real time, which gives us unprecedented insight into the explosion process."


For related images to this story, please visit on the Web:

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2008/swift_supernova.html

 
For more information on Swift, please visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/swift/main/index.html

[jcm]

> NASA’S SWIFT SATELLITE CATCHES FIRST SUPERNOVA IN THE ACT OF EXPLODING

This is a cool one - Alicia presented it at the HEAD conference a couple of months ago. She was one of our favorite undergraduate summer students about 10 years ago, working on supernovae
even in those days - we knew she would go far, but I'm thrilled for her that she's getting  due recognition for this result.
Something like this is a combination of luck, careful preparation, and heaps of careful after-the-fact analysis.
And Swift came top in the recent Senior Review, so we can expect a lot more nice results from it in the years to come.
(I'm only a *little* miffed that our mission came second...)

 Jonathan

[jacqmans]

MEDIA ADVISORY: M08-165

NASA TO ANNOUNCE SWIFT GAMMA-RAY BURST FINDINGS

WASHINGTON -- NASA will hold a media teleconference Wednesday, Sept.
10, at 1 p.m. EDT, to discuss new results regarding the gamma-ray
burst GRB 080319B, which was visible to the naked eye.

The burst's optical emission is the brightest seen to date and appears
to have been aimed almost directly at Earth. Extensive observations
from NASA's Swift satellite and ground-based observatories show the
burst emission mechanism in unprecedented detail.
The panelists include:

-- David Burrows, NASA Swift X-ray Telescope lead, Penn State, College
Park, Pa.
-- Judith Racusin, graduate student, Penn State
-- Grigory Beskin, senior scientist, Special Astrophysical Observatory
of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Nizhnij Arkhyz,
Karachaevo-Cherkessia, Russia
-- Dieter Hartmann, professor, Clemson University, Clemson, S.C.

To participate in the teleconference, reporters should e-mail a
request to J.D. Harrington at [email protected] by noon, Sept.
10. Requests must include media affiliation and a contact telephone
number. Supporting information for the briefing will be posted at
noon, Sept. 10, at:

http://www.nasa.gov/swift

Audio of the teleconference will be streamed live at:

http://www.nasa.gov/newsaudio

For more information about the Swift mission, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/swift

[jacqmans]

RELEASE: 08-239

NASA'S SWIFT CATCHES FARTHEST-EVER GAMMA-RAY BURST

WASHINGTON -- NASA's Swift satellite has found the most distant
gamma-ray burst ever detected. The blast, designated GRB 080913,
arose from an exploding star 12.8 billion light-years away.

"This is the most amazing burst Swift has seen," said the mission's
lead scientist Neil Gehrels at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in
Greenbelt, Md. "It's coming to us from near the edge of the visible
universe."

Because light moves at finite speed, looking farther into the universe
means looking back in time. GRB 080913's "lookback time" reveals that
the burst occurred less than 825 million years after the universe
began.

The star that caused this "shot seen across the cosmos" died when the
universe was less than one-seventh its present age. "This burst
accompanies the death of a star from one of the universe's early
generations," says Patricia Schady of the Mullard Space Science
Laboratory at University College London, who is organizing Swift
observations of the event.

Gamma rays from the far-off explosion triggered Swift's Burst Alert
Telescope at 1:47 a.m. EDT on Sept. 13. The spacecraft established
the event's location in the constellation Eridanus and quickly turned
to examine the spot. Less than two minutes after the alert, Swift's
X-Ray Telescope began observing the position. There, it found a
fading, previously unknown X-ray source.

Astronomers on the ground followed up as well. Using a 2.2-meter
telescope at the European Southern Observatory in La Silla, Chile, a
group led by Jochen Greiner at the Max Planck Institute for
Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, Germany, captured the bursts
fading afterglow.

The telescope's software listens for alerts from Swift and
automatically slewed to the burst position. Then, the team's
Gamma-Ray Burst Optical/Near-Infrared Detector, or GROND,
simultaneously captured the waning light in seven wavelengths. "Our
first exposure began just one minute after the X-Ray Telescope
started observing," Greiner says.

In certain colors, the brightness of a distant object shows a
characteristic drop caused by intervening gas clouds. The farther
away the object is, the longer the wavelength where this fade-out
begins. GROND exploits this effect and gives astronomers a quick
estimate of an explosion's shift toward the less energetic red end of
the electromagnetic spectrum, or "redshift," which suggests its
record-setting distance.

An hour and a half later, as part of Greiner's research, the Very
Large Telescope at Paranal, Chile, targeted the afterglow. Analysis
of the spectrum with Johan Fynbo of the University of Copenhagen
established the blasts redshift at 6.7 -- among the most distant
objects known.

Gamma-ray bursts are the universe's most luminous explosions. Most
occur when massive stars run out of nuclear fuel. As their cores
collapse into a black hole or neutron star, gas jets -- driven by
processes not fully understood -- punch through the star and blast
into space. There, they strike gas previously shed by the star and
heat it, which generates bright afterglows.

The previous record holder was a burst with a redshift of 6.29, which
placed it 70 million light-years closer than GRB 080913.

Swift, launched in November 2004, has had a banner year. In March, the
satellite detected the brightest gamma-ray burst, which was visible
to the human eye despite occurring billions of light-years away. And
in January, the spacecraft's instruments caught the first X-rays from
a new supernova days before optical astronomers saw the exploding
star.

Swift is managed by Goddard. It was built and is being operated in
collaboration with Penn State University, University Park, Pa., the
Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, and General Dynamics of
Gilbert, Ariz., in the U.S. International collaborators include the
University of Leicester and Mullard Space Sciences Laboratory in the
United Kingdom, Brera Observatory and the Italian Space Agency in
Italy, and additional partners in Germany and Japan.

For related images to this release, please visit:



http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/swift/bursts/farthest_grb.html   


-end-

[jacqmans]

RELEASE: 09-028

NASA'S SWIFT, FERMI PROBE FIREWORKS FROM A FLARING GAMMA-RAY STAR

WASHINGTON -- Astronomers using NASA's Swift satellite and Fermi
Gamma-ray Space Telescope are seeing frequent blasts from a stellar
remnant 30,000 light-years away. The high-energy fireworks arise from
a rare type of neutron star known as a soft-gamma-ray repeater. Such
objects unpredictably send out a series of X-ray and gamma-ray
flares.

"At times, this remarkable object has erupted with more than a hundred
flares in as little as 20 minutes," said Loredana Vetere, who is
coordinating the Swift observations at Pennsylvania State University.
"The most intense flares emitted more total energy than the sun does
in 20 years."

The object, which has long been known as an X-ray source, lies in the
southern constellation Norma. During the past two years, astronomers
have identified pulsing radio and X-ray signals from it. The object
began a series of modest eruptions on Oct. 3, 2008, then settled
down. It roared back to life Jan. 22 with an intense episode.

Because of the recent outbursts, astronomers will classify the object
as a soft-gamma-ray repeater -- only the sixth known. In 2004, a
giant flare from another soft-gamma-ray repeater was so intense it
measurably affected Earth's upper atmosphere from 50,000 light-years
away.

Scientists think the source is a spinning neutron star, which is the
superdense, city-sized remains of an exploded star. Although only
about 12 miles across, a neutron star contains more mass than the
sun. The object has been cataloged as SGR J1550-5418.

While neutron stars typically possess intense magnetic fields, a
subgroup displays fields 1,000 times stronger. These so-called
magnetars have the strongest magnetic fields of any known object in
the universe. SGR J1550-5418, which rotates once every 2.07 seconds,
holds the record for the fastest-spinning magnetar. Astronomers think
magnetars power their flares by tapping into the tremendous energy of
their magnetic fields.

"The ability of Fermi's gamma-ray burst monitor to resolve the fine
structure within these events will help us better understand how
magnetars unleash their energy," said Chryssa Kouveliotou, an
astrophysicist at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville,
Ala. The object has triggered the instrument more than 95 times since
Jan. 22.

Using data from Swift's X-ray telescope, Jules Halpern at Columbia
University captured the first "light echoes" ever seen from a
soft-gamma-ray repeater. Images acquired when the latest flaring
episode began show what appear to be expanding halos around the
source. Multiple rings form as X-rays interact with dust clouds at
different distances, with closer clouds producing larger rings. Both
the rings and their apparent expansion are an illusion caused by the
finite speed of light and the longer path the scattered light must
travel.

"X-rays from the brightest bursts scatter off of dust clouds between
us and the star," Halpern said. "As a result, we don't really know
the distance to this object as well as we would like. These images
will help us make a more precise measurement and also determine the
distance to the dust clouds."

NASA's Wind satellite, the joint NASA-Japan Suzaku mission, and the
European Space Agency's INTEGRAL satellite also have detected flares
from SGR J1550-5418.

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., manages the
Swift satellite. It is being operated in collaboration with partners
in the U.S., the United Kingdom, Italy, Germany and Japan. NASA's
Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope is an astrophysics and particle
physics observatory developed in collaboration with the U.S.
Department of Energy and with important contributions from academic
institutions and partners in France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Sweden,
and the U.S.

To see the related images, visit:



http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/swift/bursts/gammaray_fireworks.html


For more information about the Swift satellite, visit:


http://www.nasa.gov/swift


For more information about the Fermi mission, visit;

http://www.nasa.gov/fermi

[jacqmans]

RELEASE: 09-088

NEW GAMMA-RAY BURST SMASHES COSMIC DISTANCE RECORD

WASHINGTON -- 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.

"Swift was designed to catch these very distant bursts," said Swift
lead scientist Neil Gehrels at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in
Greenbelt, Md. "The incredible distance to this burst exceeded our
greatest expectations -- it was a true blast from the past."

At 3:55 a.m. EDT on April 23, Swift detected a ten-second-long
gamma-ray burst of modest brightness. It quickly pivoted to bring its
ultraviolet/optical and X-ray telescopes to observe the burst
location. Swift saw a fading X-ray afterglow but none in visible
light.

"The burst most likely arose from the explosion of a massive star,"
said Derek Fox at Pennsylvania State University. "We're seeing the
demise of a star -- and probably the birth of a black hole -- in one
of the universe's earliest stellar generations."

Gamma-ray bursts are the universe's most luminous explosions. Most
occur when massive stars run out of nuclear fuel. As their cores
collapse into a black hole or neutron star, gas jets -- driven by
processes not fully understood -- punch through the star and blast
into space. There, they strike gas previously shed by the star and
heat it, which generates short-lived afterglows in many wavelengths.

"The lack of visible light alone suggested this could be a very
distant object," explained team member Edo Berger of Harvard
University.

Beyond a certain distance, the expansion of the universe shifts all
optical emission into longer infrared wavelengths. While a star's
ultraviolet light could be similarly shifted into the visible region,
ultraviolet-absorbing hydrogen gas grows thicker at earlier times.
"If you look far enough away, you can't see visible light from any
object," he noted.

Within three hours of the burst, Nial Tanvir at the University of
Leicester, U.K., and his colleagues reported detection of an infrared
source at the Swift position using the United Kingdom Infrared
Telescope on Mauna Kea, Hawaii. "Burst afterglows provide us with the
most information about the exploded star and its environs," Tanvir
said. "But because afterglows fade out so fast, we must target them
quickly."

At the same time, Fox led an effort to obtain infrared images of the
afterglow using the Gemini North Telescope on Mauna Kea. The source
appeared in longer-wavelength images but was absent in an image taken
at the shortest wavelength of 1 micron. This "drop out" corresponded
to a distance of about 13 billion light-years.

As Fox spread the word about the record distance, telescopes around
the world slewed toward GRB 090423 to observe the afterglow before it
faded away.

At the Galileo National Telescope on La Palma in the Canary Islands, a
team including Guido Chincarini at the University of Milan-Bicocca,
Italy, determined that the afterglow's so-called redshift was 8.2.
Tanvir's team, gathering nearly simultaneous observations using one
of the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescopes on Cerro
Paranal, Chile, arrived at the same number. The burst exploded 13.035
billion light-years away.

"It's an incredible find," Chincarini said. "What makes it even better
is that a telescope named for Galileo made this measurement during
the year in which we celebrate the 400th anniversary of Galileo's
first astronomical use of the telescope."

A few hours later, Tanvir's team confirmed the distance using one of
the European Very Large Telescopes on Cerro Paranal in Chile.

The previous record holder was a burst seen in September 2008. It
showed a redshift of 6.7, which places it 190 million light-years
closer than GRB 090423.

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center manages Swift. It was built and is
being operated in collaboration with Pennsylvania State University,
the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, and General
Dynamics of Gilbert, Ariz., in the United States. International
collaborators include the University of Leicester and Mullard Space
Sciences Laboratory in the United Kingdom, Brera Observatory and the
Italian Space Agency in Italy, and additional partners in Germany and
Japan.

For more information, images and animations, visit:



http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/swift/bursts/cosmic_record.html

[jacqmans]

RELEASE: 09-065

Swift Makes Best-Ever Ultraviolet Portrait of Andromeda Galaxy

GREENBELT, Md. -- In a break from its usual task of searching for distant cosmic explosions, NASA's Swift satellite has acquired the highest-resolution view of a neighboring spiral galaxy ever attained in the ultraviolet. The galaxy, known as M31 in the constellation Andromeda, is the largest and closest spiral galaxy to our own.

"Swift reveals about 20,000 ultraviolet sources in M31, especially hot, young stars and dense star clusters," said Stefan Immler, a research scientist on the Swift team at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "Of particular importance is that we have covered the galaxy in three ultraviolet filters. That will let us study M31's star-formation processes in much greater detail than previously possible."

M31, also known as the Andromeda Galaxy, is more than 220,000 light-years across and lies 2.5 million light-years away. On a clear, dark night, the galaxy is faintly visible as a misty patch to the naked eye.

Between May 25 and July 26, 2008, Swift's Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope (UVOT) acquired 330 images of M31 at wavelengths of 192.8, 224.6, and 260 nanometers. The images represent a total exposure time of 24 hours.

The task of assembling the resulting 85 gigabytes of images fell to Erin Grand, an undergraduate student at the University of Maryland at College Park who worked with Immler as an intern this summer. "After ten weeks of processing that immense amount of data, I'm extremely proud of this new view of M31," she said.

Several features are immediately apparent in the new mosaic. The first is the striking difference between the galaxy's central bulge and its spiral arms. "The bulge is smoother and redder because it's full of older and cooler stars," Immler explained. "Very few new stars form here because most of the materials needed to make them have been depleted."

Dense clusters of hot, young, blue stars sparkle beyond the central bulge. As in our own galaxy, M31's disk and spiral arms contain most of the gas and dust needed to produce new generations of stars. Star clusters are especially plentiful in an enormous ring about 150,000 light-years across.

What triggers the unusually intense star formation in Andromeda's "ring of fire"? Previous studies have shown that tides raised by the many small satellite galaxies in orbit around M31 help boost the interactions within gas clouds that result in new stars.

In 1885, an exploding star in M31's central bulge became bright enough to see with the naked eye. This was the first supernova ever recorded in any galaxy beyond our own Milky Way. "We expect an average of about one supernova per century in galaxies like M31," Immler said. "Perhaps we won't have to wait too long for another one."

"Swift is surveying nearby galaxies like M31 so astronomers can better understand star- formation conditions and relate them  to conditions in the distant galaxies where we see gamma-ray bursts occurring," said Neil Gehrels, the mission's principal investigator at NASA Goddard. Since Swift's November 2005 launch, the satellite has detected more than 400 gamma-ray bursts -- massive, far-off explosions likely associated with the births of black holes.

Swift is managed by NASA Goddard. It was built and is being operated in collaboration with Pennsylvania State University, the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, and General Dynamics of Gilbert, Ariz., in the United States. International collaborators include the University of Leicester and Mullard Space Sciences Laboratory in the United Kingdom, Brera Observatory and the Italian Space Agency in Italy, and additional partners in Germany and Japan.

For more information, images and a video, please visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/swift/bursts/uv_andromeda.html

-end-

[jacqmans]

MEDIA ADVISORY: M10-077

NASA HOLDS MEDIA BRIEFING ON RESULTS OF BLACK HOLE SURVEY

WASHINGTON -- NASA will hold a media teleconference Wednesday, May 26,
at 1 p.m. EDT, to discuss new results from the Swift satellite's
survey of active black holes.

Swift's hard X-ray survey detects supermassive black holes in the
hearts of nearby galaxies that are absorbing gas and emitting energy.
The survey has uncovered dozens of previously unknown active black
holes that were hidden from observations at other wavelengths. These
discoveries confirm theoretical ideas about how black hole activity
is triggered.

The teleconference panelists are:
- Neil Gehrels, Swift principal investigator, NASA's Goddard Space
Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
- Michael Koss, graduate student, University of Maryland
- Meg Urry, professor, Yale University
- Joel Bregman, professor, University of Michigan

To participate in the teleconference, reporters should e-mail J.D.
Harrington at [email protected] by 10 a.m. May 26. Requests
must include the media affiliation and telephone number. Supporting
information for the briefing will be posted at noon on May 26:


http://www.nasa.gov/swift


Audio of the teleconference will be streamed live at:


http://www.nasa.gov/newsaudio   

[jacqmans]

RELEASE: 10-119

NASA'S SWIFT SURVEY FINDS 'SMOKING GUN' OF BLACK HOLE ACTIVATION

WASHINGTON -- Data from an ongoing survey by NASA's Swift satellite
have helped astronomers solve a decades-long mystery about why a
small percentage of black holes emit vast amounts of energy.

Only about one percent of supermassive black holes exhibit this
behavior. The new findings confirm that black holes "light up" when
galaxies collide, and the data may offer insight into the future
behavior of the black hole in our own Milky Way galaxy. The study
will appear in the June 20 issue of The Astrophysical Journal
Letters.

The intense emission from galaxy centers, or nuclei, arises near a
supermassive black hole containing between a million and a billion
times the sun's mass. Giving off as much as 10 billion times the
sun's energy, some of these active galactic nuclei (AGN) are the most
luminous objects in the universe. They include quasars and blazars.

"Theorists have shown that the violence in galaxy mergers can feed a
galaxy's central black hole," said Michael Koss, the study's lead
author and a graduate student at the University of Maryland in
College Park. "The study elegantly explains how the black holes
switched on."

Until Swift's hard X-ray survey, astronomers never could be sure they
had counted the majority of the AGN. Thick clouds of dust and gas
surround the black hole in an active galaxy, which can block
ultraviolet, optical and low-energy, or soft X-ray, light. Infrared
radiation from warm dust near the black hole can pass through the
material, but it can be confused with emissions from the galaxy's
star-forming regions. Hard X-rays can help scientists directly detect
the energetic black hole. Since 2004, the Burst Alert Telescope (BAT)
aboard Swift has been mapping the sky using hard X-rays.

"Building up its exposure year after year, the Swift BAT Hard X-ray
Survey is the largest, most sensitive and complete census of the sky
at these energies," said Neil Gehrels, Swift's principal investigator
at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

The survey, which is sensitive to AGN as far as 650 million
light-years away, uncovered dozens of previously unrecognized
systems.

"The Swift BAT survey is giving us a very different picture of AGN,"
Koss said. The team finds that about a quarter of the BAT galaxies
are in mergers or close pairs. "Perhaps 60 percent of these galaxies
will completely merge in the next billion years. We think we have the
'smoking gun' for merger-triggered AGN that theorists have
predicted."

Swift, launched in November 2004, is managed by Goddard. It was built
and is being operated in collaboration with Penn State, the Los
Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, and General Dynamics in
Falls Church, Va.; the University of Leicester and Mullard Space
Sciences Laboratory in the United Kingdom; Brera Observatory and the
Italian Space Agency in Italy; plus additional partners in Germany
and Japan.

Other members of the study team include Richard Mushotzky and Sylvain
Veilleux at the University of Maryland and Lisa Winter at the Center
for Astrophysics and Space Astronomy at the University of Colorado in
Boulder.

For more information, images and animations, visit:


http://www.nasa.gov/swift   


-end-

[jacqmans]

RELEASE: 11-271

NASA'S SWIFT SATELLITE SPOTS BLACK HOLE DEVOURING A STAR

WASHINGTON -- Two studies appearing in the Aug. 25 issue of the
journal Nature provide new insights into a cosmic accident that has
been streaming X-rays toward Earth since late March. NASA's Swift
satellite first alerted astronomers to intense and unusual
high-energy flares from the new source in the constellation Draco.

"Incredibly, this source is still producing X-rays and may remain
bright enough for Swift to observe into next year," said David
Burrows, professor of astronomy at Penn State University and lead
scientist for the mission's X-Ray Telescope instrument. "It behaves
unlike anything we've seen before."

Astronomers soon realized the source, known as Swift J1644+57, was the
result of a truly extraordinary event -- the awakening of a distant
galaxy's dormant black hole as it shredded and consumed a star. The
galaxy is so far away, it took the light from the event approximately
3.9 billion years to reach Earth.

Burrows' study included NASA scientists. It highlights the X- and
gamma-ray observations from Swift and other detectors, including the
Japan-led Monitor of All-sky X-ray Image (MAXI) instrument aboard the
International Space Station.

The second study was led by Ashley Zauderer, a post-doctoral fellow at
the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass.
It examines the unprecedented outburst through observations from
numerous ground-based radio observatories, including the National
Radio Astronomy Observatory's Expanded Very Large Array (EVLA) near
Socorro, N.M.

Most galaxies, including our own, possess a central supersized black
hole weighing millions of times the sun's mass. According to the new
studies, the black hole in the galaxy hosting Swift J1644+57 may be
twice the mass of the four-million-solar-mass black hole in the
center of the Milky Way galaxy. As a star falls toward a black hole,
it is ripped apart by intense tides. The gas is corralled into a disk
that swirls around the black hole and becomes rapidly heated to
temperatures of millions of degrees.

The innermost gas in the disk spirals toward the black hole, where
rapid motion and magnetism create dual, oppositely directed "funnels"
through which some particles may escape. Jets driving matter at
velocities greater than 90 percent the speed of light form along the
black hole's spin axis. In the case of Swift J1644+57, one of these
jets happened to point straight at Earth.

"The radio emission occurs when the outgoing jet slams into the
interstellar environment," Zauderer explained. "By contrast, the
X-rays arise much closer to the black hole, likely near the base of
the jet."

Theoretical studies of tidally disrupted stars suggested they would
appear as flares at optical and ultraviolet energies. The brightness
and energy of a black hole's jet is greatly enhanced when viewed
head-on. The phenomenon, called relativistic beaming, explains why
Swift J1644+57 was seen at X-ray energies and appeared so strikingly
luminous.

When first detected March 28, the flares were initially assumed to
signal a gamma-ray burst, one of the nearly daily short blasts of
high-energy radiation often associated with the death of a massive
star and the birth of a black hole in the distant universe. But as
the emission continued to brighten and flare, astronomers realized
that the most plausible explanation was the tidal disruption of a
sun-like star seen as beamed emission.

By March 30, EVLA observations by Zauderer's team showed a brightening
radio source centered on a faint galaxy near Swift's position for the
X-ray flares. These data provided the first conclusive evidence that
the galaxy, the radio source and the Swift event were linked.

"Our observations show that the radio-emitting region is still
expanding at more than half the speed of light," said Edo Berger, an
associate professor of astrophysics at Harvard and a coauthor of the
radio paper. "By tracking this expansion backward in time, we can
confirm that the outflow formed at the same time as the Swift X-ray
source."

Swift, launched in November 2004, is managed by NASA's Goddard Space
Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. It is operated in collaboration with
Penn State, the Los Alamos National Laboratory in N.M. and Orbital
Sciences Corp., in Dulles, Va., with international collaborators in
the U.K., Italy, Germany and Japan. MAXI is operated by the Japan
Aerospace Exploration Agency as an external experiment attached to
the Kibo module of the space station. For images and animations
related to the studies, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/swift   

[jacqmans]

RELEASE: 11-401

NASA'S SWIFT FINDS A GAMMA-RAY BURST WITH A DUAL PERSONALITY

WASHINGTON -- A peculiar cosmic explosion first detected by NASA's
Swift observatory on Christmas Day 2010 was caused either by a novel
type of supernova located billions of light-years away or an unusual
collision much closer to home, within our own galaxy. Papers
describing both interpretations appear in the Dec. 1 issue of the
journal Nature.

Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are the universe's most luminous explosions,
emitting more energy in a few seconds than our sun will during its
entire energy-producing lifetime. What astronomers are calling the
"Christmas burst" is so unusual that it can be modeled in such
radically different ways.

"What the Christmas burst seems to be telling us is that the family of
gamma-ray bursts is more diverse than we fully appreciate," said
Christina Thoene, the supernova study's lead author, at the Institute
of Astrophysics of Andalusia in Granada, Spain. It's only by rapidly
detecting hundreds of them, as Swift is doing, that we can catch some
of the more eccentric siblings."

Common to both scenarios is the presence of a neutron star, the
crushed core that forms when a star many times the sun's mass
explodes. When the star's fuel is exhausted, it collapses under its
own weight, compressing its core so much that about a half-million
times Earth's mass is squeezed into a sphere no larger than a city.

The Christmas burst, also known as GRB 101225A, was discovered in the
constellation Andromeda by Swift's Burst Alert Telescope at 1:38 p.m.
EST on Dec. 25, 2010. The gamma-ray emission lasted at least 28
minutes, which is unusually long. Follow-up observations of the
burst's afterglow by the Hubble Space Telescope and ground-based
observatories were unable to determine the object's distance.

Thoene's team proposes that the burst occurred in an exotic binary
system where a neutron star orbited a normal star that had just
entered its red giant phase, enormously expanding its outer
atmosphere. This expansion engulfed the neutron star, resulting in
both the ejection of the giant's atmosphere and rapid tightening of
the neutron star's orbit.

Once the two stars became wrapped in a common envelope of gas, the
neutron star may have merged with the giant's core after just five
orbits, or about 18 months. The end result of the merger was the
birth of a black hole and the production of oppositely directed jets
of particles moving at nearly the speed of light, followed by a weak
supernova.

The particle jets produced gamma rays. Jet interactions with gas
ejected before the merger explain many of the burst's signature
oddities. Based on this interpretation, the event took place about
5.5 billion light-years away, and the team has detected what may be a
faint galaxy at the right location.

"Deep exposures using Hubble may settle the nature of this object,"
said Sergio Campana, who led the collision study at Brera Observatory
in Merate, Italy.

If it is indeed a galaxy, that would be evidence for the binary model.
On the other hand, if NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory finds an X-ray
point source or if radio telescopes detect a pulsar, that goes
against it.

Campana's team supports an alternative model that involves the tidal
disruption of a large comet-like object and the ensuing crash of
debris onto a neutron star located only about 10,000 light-years
away. The scenario requires the break-up of an object with about half
the mass of the dwarf planet Ceres. While rare in the asteroid belt,
such objects are thought to be common in the icy Kuiper belt beyond
Neptune. Similar objects located far away from the neutron star may
have survived the supernova that formed it.

Gamma-ray emission occurred when debris fell onto the neutron star.
Clumps of cometary material likely made a few orbits, with different
clumps following different paths before settling into a disk around
the neutron star. X-ray variations detected by Swift's X-Ray
Telescope that lasted several hours may have resulted from
late-arriving clumps that struck the neutron star as the disk formed.


In the early years of studying GRBs, astronomers had very few events
to study in detail and dozens of theories to explain them. In the
Swift era, astronomers have settled into two basic scenarios, either
the collapse of a massive star or the merger of a compact binary
system.

"The beauty of the Christmas burst is that we must invoke two exotic
scenarios to explain it, but such rare oddballs will help us advance
the field," said Chryssa Kouveliotou, a co-author of the supernova
study at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.

NASA's Swift was launched in November 2004 and is managed by Goddard.
It is operated in collaboration with several U.S. institutions and
partners in the United Kingdom, Italy, Germany and Japan.

For more information and video associated with this release, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/swift

[jacqmans]

RELEASE: 12-086

NASA'S SWIFT NARROWS DOWN ORIGIN OF IMPORTANT SUPERNOVA CLASS

WASHINGTON -- Studies using X-ray and ultraviolet observations from
NASA's Swift satellite provide new insights into the elusive origins
of an important class of exploding star called Type Ia supernovae.

These explosions, which can outshine their galaxy for weeks, release
large and consistent amounts of energy at visible wavelengths. These
qualities make them among the most valuable tools for measuring
distance in the universe. Because astronomers know the intrinsic
brightness of Type Ia supernovae, how bright they appear directly
reveals how far away they are.

"For all their importance, it's a bit embarrassing for astronomers
that we don't know fundamental facts about the environs of these
supernovae," said Stefan Immler, an astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard
Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "Now, thanks to unprecedented
X-ray and ultraviolet data from Swift, we have a clearer picture of
what's required to blow up these stars."

Astronomers have known for decades that Type Ia supernovae originate
with a remnant star called a white dwarf, which detonates when pushed
to a critical mass. The environment that sets the stage for the
explosion, however, has been harder to pin down.

According to the most popular scenario, a white dwarf orbits a normal
star and pulls a stream of matter from it. This gas flows onto the
white dwarf, which gains mass until it reaches a critical threshold
and undergoes a catastrophic explosion.

"A missing detail is what types of stars reside in these systems. They
may be a mix of stars like the sun or much more massive red- and
blue-supergiant stars," said Brock Russell, a physics graduate
student at the University of Maryland, College Park, and lead author
of the X-ray study.

In a competing model, the supernova arises when two white dwarfs in a
binary system eventually spiral inward and collide. Observations
suggest both scenarios occur in nature, but no one knows which
version happens more often.

Swift's primary mission is to locate gamma-ray bursts, which are more
distant and energetic explosions associated with the birth of black
holes. Between these bursts, astronomers can use Swift's unique
capabilities to study other objects, including newly discovered
supernovae. The satellite's X-ray Telescope (XRT) has studied more
than 200 supernovae to date, with about 30 percent being Type Ia.

Russell and Immler combined X-ray data for 53 of the nearest known
Type Ia supernovae but could not detect an X-ray point source. Stars
shed gas and dust throughout their lives. When a supernova shock wave
plows into this material, it becomes heated and emits X-rays. The
lack of X-rays from the combined supernovae shows that supergiant
stars, and even sun-like stars in a later red giant phase, likely
aren't present in the host binaries.

In a companion study, a team led by Peter Brown at the University of
Utah in Salt Lake City looked at 12 Type Ia events observed by
Swift's Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope (UVOT) less than 10 days after
the explosion. A supernova shock wave should produce enhanced
ultraviolet light as it interacts with its companion, with larger
stars producing brighter, longer enhancements. Swift's UVOT detected
no such emission, leading the researchers to exclude large, red giant
stars from Type Ia binaries.

Taken together, the studies suggest the companion to the white dwarf
is either a smaller, younger star similar to our sun or another white
dwarf. The X-ray findings will appear in the April 1 issue of The
Astrophysical Journal Letters; the ultraviolet results appear in the
April 10 edition of The Astrophysical Journal.

The ultraviolet studies rely on early, sensitive observations. As
Brown's study was being written, nature provided a great case study
in SN 2011fe, the closest Type Ia supernova since 1986. Early Swift
UVOT observations show no ultraviolet enhancement. According to the
findings in an unpublished study led also by Brown, this means any
companion must be smaller than the sun.

Swift data on SN 2011fe also figure prominently in unpublished studies
led by Alicia Soderberg at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for
Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass. Preliminary results suggest that the
explosion was caused by merging white dwarfs.

Swift launched in November 2004 and is managed by Goddard. It is
operated in collaboration with Pennsylvania State University and
other national and international partners.

For images related to this story, visit:


http://www.nasa.gov/swift

[jacqmans]

RELEASE: 12-353

NASA'S SWIFT SATELLITE DISCOVERS A NEW BLACK HOLE IN OUR GALAXY

WASHINGTON -- NASA's Swift satellite recently detected a rising tide
of high-energy X-rays from a source toward the center of our Milky
Way galaxy. The outburst, produced by a rare X-ray nova, announced
the presence of a previously unknown stellar-mass black hole.

"Bright X-ray novae are so rare that they're essentially
once-a-mission events and this is the first one Swift has seen," said
Neil Gehrels, the mission's principal investigator, at NASA's Goddard
Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "This is really something we've
been waiting for."

An X-ray nova is a short-lived X-ray source that appears suddenly,
reaches its emission peak in a few days and then fades out over a
period of months. The outburst arises when a torrent of stored gas
suddenly rushes toward one of the most compact objects known, either
a neutron star or a black hole.

The rapidly brightening source triggered Swift's Burst Alert Telescope
twice on the morning of Sept. 16, and once again the next day.

Named Swift J1745-26 after the coordinates of its sky position, the
nova is located a few degrees from the center of our galaxy toward
the constellation Sagittarius. While astronomers do not know its
precise distance, they think the object resides about 20,000 to
30,000 light-years away in the galaxy's inner region.

Ground-based observatories detected infrared and radio emissions, but
thick clouds of obscuring dust have prevented astronomers from
catching Swift J1745-26 in visible light.

The nova peaked in hard X-rays -- energies above 10,000 electron
volts, or several thousand times that of visible light -- on Sept.
18, when it reached an intensity equivalent to that of the famous
Crab Nebula, a supernova remnant that serves as a calibration target
for high-energy observatories and is considered one of the brightest
sources beyond the solar system at these energies.

Even as it dimmed at higher energies, the nova brightened in the
lower-energy, or softer, emissions detected by Swift's X-ray
Telescope, a behavior typical of X-ray novae. By Wednesday, Swift
J1745-26 was 30 times brighter in soft X-rays than when it was
discovered and it continued to brighten.

"The pattern we're seeing is observed in X-ray novae where the central
object is a black hole. Once the X-rays fade away, we hope to measure
its mass and confirm its black hole status," said Boris Sbarufatti,
an astrophysicist at Brera Observatory in Milan, Italy, who currently
is working with other Swift team members at Penn State in University
Park, Pa.

The black hole must be a member of a low-mass X-ray binary (LMXB)
system, which includes a normal, sun-like star. A stream of gas flows
from the normal star and enters into a storage disk around the black
hole. In most LMXBs, the gas in the disk spirals inward, heats up as
it heads toward the black hole, and produces a steady stream of
X-rays.

But under certain conditions, stable flow within the disk depends on
the rate of matter flowing into it from the companion star. At
certain rates, the disk fails to maintain a steady internal flow and
instead flips between two dramatically different conditions -- a
cooler, less ionized state where gas simply collects in the outer
portion of the disk like water behind a dam, and a hotter, more
ionized state that sends a tidal wave of gas surging toward the
center.

"Each outburst clears out the inner disk, and with little or no matter
falling toward the black hole, the system ceases to be a bright
source of X-rays," said John Cannizzo, a Goddard astrophysicist.
"Decades later, after enough gas has accumulated in the outer disk,
it switches again to its hot state and sends a deluge of gas toward
the black hole, resulting in a new X-ray outburst."

This phenomenon, called the thermal-viscous limit cycle, helps
astronomers explain transient outbursts across a wide range of
systems, from protoplanetary disks around young stars, to dwarf novae
-- where the central object is a white dwarf star -- and even bright
emission from supermassive black holes in the hearts of distant
galaxies.

Swift, launched in November 2004, is managed by Goddard Space Flight
Center. It is operated in collaboration with Penn State, the Los
Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and Orbital Sciences Corp.
in Dulles, Va., with international collaborators in the United
Kingdom and Italy and including contributions from Germany and Japan.


For images related to this discovery and more information about Swift,
visit:

http://go.nasa.gov/QLlkCH

[savuporo]

SWIFT apparently just detected a gamma ray burst very close by, a few hours ago.
All astronomers are going positively bonkers on Twitter. #GRBm31 and @rerutled


See https://twitter.com/partialobs/status/471415265469546496

"Gamma Ray Burst(?) Detected in Andromeda Galaxy "
http://heavymetallicity.blogspot.de/2014/05/gamma-ray-burst-detected-in-andromeda.html

[as58]

Apparently not a GRB:

http://www.star.le.ac.uk/~pae9/twitter/GRBM31.html

Another source:

http://gcn.gsfc.nasa.gov/gcn3/16336.gcn3

SWIFT apparently just detected a gamma ray burst very close by, a few hours ago.
All astronomers are going positively bonkers on Twitter. #GRBm31 and @rerutled


See https://twitter.com/partialobs/status/471415265469546496

"Gamma Ray Burst(?) Detected in Andromeda Galaxy "
http://heavymetallicity.blogspot.de/2014/05/gamma-ray-burst-detected-in-andromeda.html

[Star One]

Apparently not a GRB:

http://www.star.le.ac.uk/~pae9/twitter/GRBM31.html

Another source:

http://gcn.gsfc.nasa.gov/gcn3/16336.gcn3

SWIFT apparently just detected a gamma ray burst very close by, a few hours ago.
All astronomers are going positively bonkers on Twitter. #GRBm31 and @rerutled


See https://twitter.com/partialobs/status/471415265469546496

"Gamma Ray Burst(?) Detected in Andromeda Galaxy "
http://heavymetallicity.blogspot.de/2014/05/gamma-ray-burst-detected-in-andromeda.html

And now we wait for the backlash over this seeing how social media often seems to work these days.

[catdlr]

NASA | Highlights of Swift's Decade of Discovery

Published on Nov 20, 2014
NASA's Swift satellite rode to orbit aboard a Delta II rocket on November 20, 2004, and it's still going strong. Swift's unique instrumentation allows it to quickly locate an interesting high-energy outburst, automatically determine its position, and rapidly investigate it with ultraviolet, optical, and X-ray telescopes. Swift's versatility has led to amazing observations across a wide swath of astronomy. As Swift begins its second decade of operation, its speed, flexibility and versatility make it an important platform for studying the most energetic and rapidly changing phenomena in the cosmos.

[catdlr]

NASA | Swift: A Decade of Game-changing Astrophysics

Published on Nov 20, 2014
Over the past decade, NASA's Swift Gamma-ray Burst Explorer has proven itself to be one of the most versatile astrophysics missions ever flown. It remains the only satellite capable of precisely locating gamma-ray bursts -- the universe's most powerful explosions -- and monitoring them across a broad range of wavelengths using multiple instruments before they fade from view.

[Star One]

Cosmic whistle packs a surprisingly energetic punch

Penn State University astronomers have discovered that the mysterious "cosmic whistles" known as fast radio bursts can pack a serious punch, in some cases releasing a billion times more energy in gamma-rays than they do in radio waves and rivaling the stellar cataclysms known as supernovae in their explosive power. The discovery, the first-ever finding of non-radio emission from any fast radio burst, drastically raises the stakes for models of fast radio bursts and is expected to further energize efforts by astronomers to chase down and identify long-lived counterparts to fast radio bursts using X-ray, optical, and radio telescopes.

Discovery of the gamma-ray "bang" from FRB 131104, the first non-radio counterpart to any FRB, was made possible by NASA's Earth-orbiting Swift satellite, which was observing the exact part of the sky where FRB 131104 occurred as the burst was detected by the Parkes Observatory radio telescope in Parkes, Australia. "Swift is always watching the sky for bursts of X-rays and gamma-rays," said Neil Gehrels, the mission's Principal Investigator and chief of the Astroparticle Physics Laboratory at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. "What a delight it was to catch this flash from one of the mysterious fast radio bursts."

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-11/ps-cwp111016.php

[hop]

Cosmic whistle packs a surprisingly energetic punch

Related paper on Arxiv https://arxiv.org/abs/1611.03139

Very cool if it holds up (no particular reason to think it won't, but given a single 3.2σ event, some caution may be in order)

[ulm_atms]

Seems like SWIFT's reaction wheels are starting to act up.

https://swift.gsfc.nasa.gov/news/2022/safe_mode.html

[StraumliBlight]

NASA Explores Industry Possibilities to Raise Swift Mission’s Orbit [Aug 11]

To drive the development of key space-based capabilities for the United States, NASA is exploring an opportunity to demonstrate technology to raise a spacecraft’s orbit to a higher altitude. Two American companies – Cambrian Works of Reston, Virginia, and Katalyst Space Technologies of Flagstaff, Arizona – will develop concept design studies for a possible orbit boost for the agency’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory.

Since its launch in 2004, NASA’s Swift mission has led the agency’s fleet of space telescopes in investigating changes in the high-energy universe. The spacecraft’s low Earth orbit has been decaying gradually, which happens to most satellites over time. Because of recent increases in the Sun’s activity, however, Swift is experiencing additional atmospheric drag, speeding up its orbital decay. This lowering orbit presents an opportunity for NASA to advance a U.S. industry capability, while potentially extending the science lifetime of the Swift mission. The concept studies will help determine whether extending Swift’s critical scientific capabilities would be more cost-effective than replacing those capabilities with a new observatory.

“NASA Science is committed to leveraging commercial technologies to find innovative, cost-effective ways to open new capabilities for the future of the American space sector,” said Nicky Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters in Washington. “To maintain Swift’s role in our portfolio, NASA Science is uniquely positioned to conduct a rare in-space technology demonstration to raise the satellite’s orbit and solidify American leadership in spacecraft servicing.”

The concept studies are being developed under Phase III awards through NASA’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program, managed by the agency’s Space Technology Mission Directorate, to American small businesses from a pool of existing participants. This approach allows NASA to rapidly explore affordable possibilities to boost Swift on a shorter development timeline than would otherwise be possible, given the rapid rate at which Swift’s orbit is decaying.

At this time NASA does not have plans for an orbit boost mission and could still allow the spacecraft to reenter Earth’s atmosphere, as many satellites do at the end of their lifetimes. NASA is studying a potential Swift boost to support innovation in the American space industry, while gaining a better understanding of the available options, the technical feasibility, and the risks involved.

NASA will also work with Starfish Space of Seattle, Washington, to analyze the potential of performing a Swift boost using an asset under development on an existing Phase III SBIR award. Starfish is currently developing the Small Spacecraft Propulsion and Inspection Capability (SSPICY) demonstration for NASA, with the primary objective of inspecting multiple U.S.-owned defunct satellites in low Earth orbit.

“Our SBIR portfolio exists for circumstances like this – where investments in America’s space industry provide NASA and our partners an opportunity to develop mutually beneficial capabilities,” said Clayton Turner, associate administrator, Space Technology Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters. “Whether we choose to implement the technologies in this circumstance, understanding how to boost a spacecraft’s orbit could prove valuable for future applications.”

Swift was designed to observe gamma-ray bursts, the universe’s most powerful explosions, and provide information for other NASA and partner telescopes to follow up on these events. Its fast and flexible observations have been instrumental in advancing how scientists study transient events to understand how the universe works. For more than two decades, Swift has led NASA’s missions in providing new insights on these events, together broadening our understanding of everything from exploding stars, stellar flares, and eruptions in active galaxies, to comets and asteroids in our own solar system and high-energy lightning events on Earth.

“Over its extremely productive lifetime, Swift has been a key player in NASA’s network of space telescopes – directing our fleet to ensure we keep a watchful eye on changes in the universe, both far off and close to home,” said Shawn Domagal-Goldman, acting director, Astrophysics Division, NASA Headquarters. “Now, this long-lived science mission is presenting us with a new opportunity: partnering with U.S. industry to rapidly explore efficient, state-of-the-art solutions that could extend Swift’s transformative work and advance private spacecraft servicing.”

Cambrian and Katalyst have each been awarded $150,000 under Phase III SBIR contracts for concept design studies. The NASA SBIR program is part of America’s Seed Fund, the nation’s largest source of early-stage, non-dilutive funding for innovative technologies. Through this program, entrepreneurs, startups, and small businesses with less than 500 employees can receive funding and non-monetary support to build, mature, and commercialize their technologies, advancing NASA missions and helping solve important problems facing our country.

[Blackstar]

https://spacenews.com/nasa-awards-contracts-to-study-reboost-of-swift-astrophysics-spacecraft/

NASA awards contracts to study reboost of Swift astrophysics spacecraft
by Jeff Foust August 14, 2025   

SALT LAKE CITY — NASA has selected several companies to study the feasibility of reboosting the orbit of an astrophysics satellite in danger of reentering late next year.

NASA announced Aug. 11 it awarded Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase 3 contracts to Cambrian Works and Katalyst Space Technologies to perform concept studies on reboosting the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, or Swift. Each contract is worth $150,000.

[catdlr]

NASA Awards Company to Attempt Swift Spacecraft Orbit Boost

Driving rapid innovation in the American space industry, NASA has awarded Katalyst Space Technologies of Flagstaff, Arizona, a contract to raise a spacecraft’s orbit. Katalyst’s robotic servicing spacecraft will rendezvous with NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory and raise it to a higher altitude, demonstrating a key capability for the future of space exploration and extending the Swift mission’s science lifetime.

NASA’s Swift launched in 2004 to explore the universe’s most powerful explosions, called gamma-ray bursts. The spacecraft’s low Earth orbit has been decaying gradually, which happens to satellites over time. However, because of recent increases in the Sun’s activity, Swift is experiencing more atmospheric drag than anticipated, speeding up its orbital decay. While NASA could have allowed the observatory to reenter Earth’s atmosphere, as many missions do at the end of their lifetimes, Swift’s lowering orbit presents an opportunity to advance American spacecraft servicing technology.

“This industry collaboration to boost Swift’s orbit is just one of many ways NASA works for the nation every day,” said Nicky Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters in Washington. “By moving quickly to pursue innovative commercial solutions, we’re further developing the space industry and strengthening American space leadership. This daring mission also will demonstrate our ability to go from concept to implementation in less than a year — a rapid-response capability important for our future in space as we send humans back to the Moon under the Artemis campaign, to Mars, and beyond.”

The orbit boost is targeted for spring 2026, though NASA will continue to monitor any changes in solar activity that may impact this target timeframe. A successful Swift boost would be the first time a commercial robotic spacecraft captures a government satellite that is uncrewed, or not originally designed to be serviced in space.

“Given how quickly Swift’s orbit is decaying, we are in a race against the clock, but by leveraging commercial technologies that are already in development, we are meeting this challenge head-on,” said Shawn Domagal-Goldman, acting director, Astrophysics Division, NASA Headquarters. “This is a forward-leaning, risk-tolerant approach for NASA. But attempting an orbit boost is both more affordable than replacing Swift’s capabilities with a new mission, and beneficial to the nation — expanding the use of satellite servicing to a new and broader class of spacecraft.”

Swift leads NASA’s fleet of space telescopes in studying changes in the high-energy universe. When a rapid, sudden event takes place in the cosmos, Swift serves as a “dispatcher,” providing critical information that allows other “first responder” missions to follow up to learn more about how the universe works. For more than two decades, Swift has led NASA’s missions in providing new insights on these events, together broadening our understanding of everything from exploding stars, stellar flares, and eruptions in active galaxies, to comets and asteroids in our own solar system and high-energy lightning events on Earth.

NASA has awarded Katalyst $30 million to move forward with implementation under a Phase III award as an existing participant in NASA’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program, managed by the agency’s Space Technology Mission Directorate. This approach allowed NASA to pursue an orbit boost for Swift on a shorter development timeline than would otherwise be possible, given the rapid rate at which Swift’s orbit is decaying.

“America’s space economy is brimming with cutting-edge solutions, and opportunities like this allow NASA to tap into them for real-world challenges,” said Clayton Turner, associate administrator, NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters. “Orbital decay is a common, natural occurrence for satellites, and this collaboration may open the door to extending the life of more spacecraft in the future. By working with industry, NASA fosters rapid, agile technology development, advancing capabilities to benefit the missions of today and unlock the discoveries of tomorrow.”

The NASA SBIR program is part of America’s Seed Fund, the nation’s largest source of early-stage, non-dilutive funding for innovative technologies. Through this program, entrepreneurs, startups, and small businesses with less than 500 employees can receive funding and non-monetary support to build, mature, and commercialize their technologies, advancing NASA missions and helping solve important challenges facing our country.

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the Swift mission in collaboration with Penn State, the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, and Northrop Grumman Space Systems in Dulles, Virginia. Other partners include the UK Space Agency, University of Leicester and Mullard Space Science Laboratory in the United Kingdom, Brera Observatory in Italy, and the Italian Space Agency.

To learn more about the Swift mission, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/swift

-end-

[StraumliBlight]

Space: Private mission to save NASA space telescope will launch in 2026 on a rocket dropped from a plane [Nov 19]

Northrop Grumman already had the rocket hardware for this coming mission pretty much ready to go, according to Kurt Eberly, director of space launch for the company.

The Pegasus XL will launch in June 2026, if all goes according to plan. And there's not much wiggle room in that target, considering how quickly Swift is coming down.

"We are treating this launch date as a firm commitment," Kieran Wilson, vice president of technology at Katalyst, told Space.com. "We'll kind of continuously evaluate where Swift stands in its orbital decay and figure out what sort of adaptations we might need to pursue, whether it's launching to a different altitude, whether it's targeting slightly different insertions."

The Katalyst spacecraft will head to an orbit similar to that of Swift, then spend two to three weeks closing in on the observatory. The boost vehicle will inspect its target "from reasonable standoff distances, to allow us to get high-resolution imagery and understand the current state," Wilson said.

Once that state is understood, the rescuer — which is about 4.9 feet (1.5 m) tall and weighs 770 pounds (350 kg) — will close in and capture Swift using its three robotic arms.

[nicp]

Space: Private mission to save NASA space telescope will launch in 2026 on a rocket dropped from a plane [Nov 19]

Northrop Grumman already had the rocket hardware for this coming mission pretty much ready to go, according to Kurt Eberly, director of space launch for the company.

The Pegasus XL will launch in June 2026, if all goes according to plan. And there's not much wiggle room in that target, considering how quickly Swift is coming down.

"We are treating this launch date as a firm commitment," Kieran Wilson, vice president of technology at Katalyst, told Space.com. "We'll kind of continuously evaluate where Swift stands in its orbital decay and figure out what sort of adaptations we might need to pursue, whether it's launching to a different altitude, whether it's targeting slightly different insertions."

The Katalyst spacecraft will head to an orbit similar to that of Swift, then spend two to three weeks closing in on the observatory. The boost vehicle will inspect its target "from reasonable standoff distances, to allow us to get high-resolution imagery and understand the current state," Wilson said.

Once that state is understood, the rescuer — which is about 4.9 feet (1.5 m) tall and weighs 770 pounds (350 kg) — will close in and capture Swift using its three robotic arms.

Wow. Nice to see a mission to save Swift, but I thought Pegasus was dead.

[Blackstar]

I too thought Pegasus was dead. This is from Space News:

"Pegasus has launched only three times in the last decade, most recently on the Tactically Responsive Launch-2 mission in June 2021. Despite the long gap, Eberly said both Pegasus and its L-1011 carrier aircraft are ready."

[bobthemonkey]

There were apparently two units ordered by Stratolaunch that were passed back to NG. One was used for the TacRL launch, and this is seemingly the remaining rocket.

Given how heavily SpaceX underbid for the IXPe launch, I suspect this may well be the last dance for Pegasus and Stargazer.

[Blackstar]

The Space News article said that there is only one Pegasus left, so this will be the last one.

As for Stargazer, I never understood how it hung around. It is not cheap keeping a large aircraft like an L-1011 certified. The Space News article indicates that it has been used to carry missiles and experiments for undisclosed customers. That suddenly makes a lot of sense. I bet they have been using it to drop test missiles and maybe missile targets for DoD, and that most of that has been classified, which is why it has not been reported.

Hopefully when they retire that L-1011 it will go to a museum somewhere. It is the last one flying.

[Comga]

We are discussing the Pegasus launch and the venerable Stargazer in this thread.
Can we keep this thread on SWIFT and the Katalyst rescue mission?

[Blackstar]

We are discussing the Pegasus launch and the venerable Stargazer in this thread.
Can we keep this thread on SWIFT and the Katalyst rescue mission?

We look forward to your posts on that topic.

[Comga]

The boost vehicle will inspect its target "from reasonable standoff distances, to allow us to get high-resolution imagery and understand the current state," Wilson said.

Once that state is understood, the rescuer — which is about 4.9 feet (1.5 m) tall and weighs 770 pounds (350 kg) — will close in and capture Swift using its three robotic arms.

According to a NASA News Release about a year ago, SWIFT is functioning better than ever, with a new and improved two gyro pointing scheme.

What is there to “understand” about “the state”?
It’s under active attitude control.
They know what hardware is installed.
Perhaps there has been some degradation in the MLI, but what else is unknown?

The news releases also state that NASA in April issued two SBIR Phase 3 design studies for reboosting Swift, to Katalyst and Cambrian Works, and made the award to Katalyst five months later.

I still wonder, why Swift, 21 years into a 2 year mission?
It would be great to hear that this is practice for Hubble.

[djellison]

Perhaps there has been some degradation in the MLI, but what else is unknown?

That's kind of the point.  You don't know until you look.

It would be a staggeringly bold assumption to presume it's in an identical state to how it was at launch two decades ago.

[StraumliBlight]

NTRS: Hubble Space Telescope and Swift Observatory Orbit Decay Study [Nov 1]

The results of the Swift Observatory decay conclude that for the nominal predicted solar activity, and average projected surface area, Swift Observatory is predicted to reenter Earth’s sensible atmosphere in 2026. The debris footprint and casualty risk were not computed for this part of the analyses due to time constraints.

[...]

The Swift Observatory was at an altitude of 451 km as of April 2025 with 20.5-degree inclination and a nearly circular eccentricity. The Swift Observatory is already at a lower altitude than HST, has a much higher area-to-mass ratio; as a result, it is twice as sensitive to atmospheric drag than HST. The mass is approximately 1456 kg.

[...]

Results for an average cross-sectional area of 17.1 m², derived Cd of 1.55, MSIS atmosphere model, and 50th percentile solar activity prediction, MSAFE file produces a possible Swift reentry in June 2026. (F-10)

Assuming a higher projected area increases drag and shows earlier reentry times as early as December 2025. Using the minimal projected area pushes out that reentry. Varying drag coefficients to a higher +1 sigma value has a stronger effect on drag and reentry leading to a 2025 possibility, while a -1 sigma value pushes out the reentry into 2027. Likewise, an extreme solar prediction environment of 95th percentile produces a February of 2026 reentry, and a 5th percentile environment produces a later December 2026 date.

Katalyst Space: Out of the Sky—We’re Planning a Rescue Mission to Save it [Nov 19]

Unlike the Hubble Space Telescope, which was serviced by astronauts aboard the Space Shuttle, Swift was never designed to be captured, much less rescued. There are no docking ports or grappling fixtures to grab onto. Instead, Katalyst’s servicer will rely on a custom-built robotic capture mechanism that will attach to a feature on the satellite’s main structure--without damaging sensitive instruments. Demonstrating this kind of delicate, do-no-harm servicing on an unprepared satellite would be a first for NASA, and has the potential to unlock a new era of on-orbit servicing where satellites can be routinely and regularly serviced instead of thrown away. 

The schedule is also unprecedented: while satellite servicing typically takes years to plan, Katalyst must be ready to launch in eight months, with docking operations scheduled for mid-2026, to save Swift before it burns up.

“Given how quickly Swift’s orbit is decaying, we are in a race against the clock, but by leveraging commercial technologies that are already in development, we are meeting this challenge head-on,” said Shawn Domagal-Goldman, acting director, Astrophysics Division, NASA Headquarters. “This is a forward-leaning, risk-tolerant approach for NASA. But attempting an orbit boost is both more affordable than replacing Swift’s capabilities with a new mission, and beneficial to the nation — expanding the use of satellite servicing to a new and broader class of spacecraft.”

Katalyst was already on schedule for an in-space demonstration of its rendezvous, proximity operations, and docking technology for June 2026. The demonstration would buy down technical risk ahead of the planned launch of Katalyst’s multi-mission robotic spacecraft, NEXUS, in 2027. When NASA raised the alarm about Swift, Katalyst seized the opportunity to pivot to a live rescue operation which would demonstrate similar capabilities.

[jacqmans]

https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/2007943502416777705?s=20

[Blackstar]

https://spacenews.com/nasa-works-to-extend-swifts-life-ahead-of-reboost-mission/

"However, while the reboost mission remains on schedule, schedule slips are always a possibility, particularly with a unique mission like this and with the lack of spaceflight experience by Katalyst.

Kennea said the Swift team is examining ways to reduce drag on the spacecraft and thereby extend its time in orbit if the reboost mission is delayed or if atmospheric density increases beyond current projections.

Most of the drag, he said, occurs during about a 20-minute segment of each orbit, when Swift passes through an atmospheric bulge on the sunward side of Earth. Mission controllers are reorienting the spacecraft during that period to reduce its cross-sectional area and thus minimize drag.

Engineers are also evaluating additional steps, such as slightly moving the solar panels away from the sun. “It’s hoped that, by doing this, we can guarantee that Swift will still be at the right altitude when the mission occurs,” he said.

Those measures would affect Swift’s science operations, including limiting its ability to point at specific targets during that 20-minute interval. “We believe that is a worthwhile trade to extend the lifetime of the Swift mission,” Kennea said.

He praised NASA’s decision to pursue the reboost effort. “This is a cheap mission,” he said, with NASA’s contract to Katalyst valued at $30 million. “This is a very good example of NASA both being amazingly fast and doing things cheaper.”