Intro music.
Mysterious and fleeting, gamma ray-bursts come from galaxies so far away that they take billions of years to reach us.
NASA's new satellite called Swift will be able to quickly slew around and investigate these dynamic beacons of light,
which scientists have speculated signal birth cries when black holes are formed.
Gamma-ray bursts are a flash of gamma rays and then there's x-ray and optical emission that fades away quickly on minute-time scales.
It lasts for hours and days after that, but it is brightest right after the burst.
No other previous mission has been able to look at that spot in the sky quickly enough to see the really bright emission
a few minutes after the burst, and that's what's unique about Swift.
Swift will also be able to relay the position of the GRB to scientists on the ground in less than one minute.
There are many theories about what causes gamma-ray bursts or GRBs.
One is the Collapsar Model where the collapse of the core of a massive star forms a black hole.
Another model is the Binary Merge Theory where two neutron stars,
or a neutron star and a black hole merge in a violent explosion.
The Swift team expects to detect and analyze 100 bursts a year.
When not catching gamma-ray bursts, Swift will conduct an all-sky survey,
which will be 20 times more sensitive than previous measurements.
The operation center for swift is at the Penn State University.
Managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, Swift was built in partnership with national laboratories, universities,
and international partners such as Italy and the United Kingdom.