The Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory

News - 2020

Nov 4, 2020

NASA Missions Help Pinpoint the Source of a Unique X-ray, Radio Burst

On April 28, a supermagnetized stellar remnant known as a magnetar blasted out a simultaneous mix of X-ray and radio signals never observed before. The flare-up included the first fast radio burst (FRB) ever seen from within our Milky Way galaxy and shows that magnetars can produce these mysterious and powerful radio blasts previously only seen in other galaxies.
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Oct 13, 2020

After-Flare Detected from Black Hole Dance

Astronomers have used NASA's telescopes, including the Neil Gehrels Swift observatory, to observe one of the largest black hole known, named OJ 287. OJ287 is a blazar hosting a black hole with the mass 18 billion times that of the Sun, and orbited by a smaller companion black hole, "only'' 150 million times more massive than the Sun. The pair of black holes has been monitored since late 2015 with NASA's Swift satellite and in a recently published paper a team of astronomers report a flash of ultraviolet and X-ray radiation. These observations provides a unique laboratory to study black hole feeding, jet formation, and general relativity.
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Apr 28, 2020

NASA's Swift Satellite Celebrates 15 Years of Multiwavelength Science

On Nov. 20, 2004, NASA's Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory took to the skies aboard a Delta 7320 rocket and entered orbit around Earth. The satellite was on the hunt to uncover the mystery of gamma-ray bursts, the universe's most powerful explosions.
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Apr 27, 2020

NASA's Swift Mission Tallied Water From Interstellar Comet Borisov

For the first time, NASA's Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory tracked water loss from an interstellar comet as it approached and rounded the Sun. The object, 2I/Borisov, traveled through the solar system in late 2019.
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