The space telescope, which observes some of the most powerful blasts of radiation from the universe's most violent cosmic events, known as "gamma-ray bursts," is only temporarily out of order. NASA placed Swift into safe mode on March 15 as a result of the "degrading performance" of one...
NASA set to launch spacecraft to study gamma ray bursts.(The Orlando Sentinel)Cabbage, Michael
The Compton Gamma Ray Observatory was launched from the Atlantis on STS-37 in 1991, discovering a possible source of antimatter at the center of the Milky Way and observing that the majority of gamma-ray bursts occur outside of the Milky Way galaxy. The Chandra X-ray Observatory was launched...
formed when a star about 20 times more massive than the sun collapsed. Many new black holes in the distant universe previously have been detected in the form of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). However, SN 1979C is different because it is much closer and belongs to a class of supernovas unlike...
-ray Space Telescope, researchers discovered a unique energy peak in the aftermath of the brightest Gamma-Ray burst ever seen, suggesting the annihilation of electrons and positrons. This finding provides new insights into the behavior of cosmic jets and the extreme conditions following ...
The mission also helped to improve measurements of the sun’s shape, and demonstrated that terrestrial gamma ray flashes — described by NASA as “bursts of gamma rays emitted from high in Earth’s atmosphere” and which occur above some thunderstorms — happen more frequently than first thought...
NASA's Swift satellite, which is typically used to track intense gamma-ray bursts from distant stars, photographed Comet ISON on Jan. 30, with the space agency unveiling the photo today (March 29). By tracking the comet over the last two months, Swift has allowed astronomers to learn new ...
Maryland. "With these results, Fermi has excluded more candidates, has shown that dark matter can contribute to only a small part of the gamma-ray background beyond our galaxy, the Milky Way, and has produced strong limits for dark matter particles in the second-largest galaxy orbiting it."...
The first of six toaster-size satellites for our Sun Radio Interferometer Space Experiment orSunRISEhas beencompleted. The tiny satellites will combine to form a 6-mile-wide telescope in space capable of detecting bursts of radio waves from the Sun’s superheated atmosphere, known as the corona...
The Fermi telescope — launched in 2008 — searches the sky for signs of dark matter, black holes and spinning pulsars by seeking out sources of gamma-ray bursts, the brightest flashes of light in the universe since the Big Bang. Editor's Note: This story has been corrected to reflect the...