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Featured Stories

Swift Produces Best UV Maps of Nearest Galaxies

The new UV surveys are the most detailed ever of the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, the Milky Way's closest neighbor galaxies.

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artist's rendering of an outburst on an ultra-magnetic neutron star, also called a magnetar

Swift Reveals Neutron Star 'Anti-Glitch'

NASA's Swift X-ray Telescope has observed a spinning, crushed core of a massive star suddenly slowing down.

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Swift Features

Record-Setting 'Shockingly Bright' Burst

A record-setting blast of gamma rays from a dying star in a distant galaxy has wowed astronomers around the world.
Dying Supergiant Stars Implicated in Hours-long Gamma-Ray Bursts

Three unusually long-lasting stellar explosions discovered by NASA's Swift satellite represent a new class of gamma-ray bursts that likely arise from dying stars hundreds of times larger than the sun.

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Mission Overview

Swift is a first-of-its-kind multi-wavelength observatory dedicated to the study of gamma-ray burst (GRB) science. Its three instruments will work together to observe GRBs and afterglows in the gamma ray, X-ray, ultraviolet, and optical wavebands. The main mission objectives for Swift are to:

Determine the origin of gamma-ray bursts
Classify gamma-ray bursts and search for new types
Determine how the blastwave evolves and interacts with the surroundings
Use gamma-ray bursts to study the early universe
Perform the first sensitive hard X-ray survey of the sky

Mission News

NASA Holds Media Briefing On Results Of Black Hole Survey

05.24.10 - 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.
NASA Satellite Detects Record Gamma Ray Burst Explosion Halfway Across Universe

03.20.08 - - 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.
NASA Scientists Catch a Unique Gamma-Ray Burst

05.11.05 - NASA scientists have, for the first time, detected and pinned down the location of a short gamma-ray burst, lasting only 50 milliseconds.
Cosmic Explosion Among the Brightest in Recorded History

02.18.05 - Scientists have detected a flash of light brighter than anything ever detected from beyond our Solar System.

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Related Sites

Swift Mission →

08.21.04 - Learn more about the Swift mission.