News
Swift Sees Pinwheel Galaxy, Satellite Fully Operational The Swift satellite's Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope (UVOT) has seen first light, capturing an image of the Pinwheel Galaxy, long loved by amateur astronomers as the "perfect" face-on spiral galaxy. The UVOT now remains poised to observe its first gamma-ray burst.Swift is a NASA-led mission dedicated to the gamma-ray burst mystery. These random and fleeting explosions likely signal the birth of black holes. With the UVOT turned on, Swift now is fully operational. Swift's two other instruments -- the Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) and the X-ray Telescope (XRT) -- were turned on over the past several weeks and have been snapping up gamma-ray bursts ever since.
|