10... 9
8....7...6...5... 
4...3...2 engine start
1...0 and lift off of... Nasa's Swift
satellite road to orbit aboard a delta
rocket on November 23 2004
and is still going strong. Swift's
unique instrumentation
allows it to quickly locate an
interesting high-energy outburst
automatically determine its position
then rapidly investigated with
ultraviolet
optical and x-ray telescopes. Swift's
versatility has lead to amazing
observations across wide swaths
astronomy. A seven-year campaign to
monitor the center of our galaxy with
Swift,
Has given astronomers a unique bounty
it is more than doubled the number a
bright x-ray flares
observe from our galaxy's central black
hole and led to the discovery of a rare,
highly magnetized neutron star.
Swift's primary target is gamma ray bursts
for GRBs.
The biggest and most mysterious
explosions in the cosmos.
On April 13th 2010 the spacecraft's
burst alert telescope catalogued
500 GRB.  On September 16 2012
NASA's Swift noticed a new and rapidly
brightening x-ray source
additional x-ray behavior told
astronomers that the object at the
center this activity
was a previously unknown black hole. 
Swift and other satellites
used x-ray telescopes to monitor
interactions between a pair
gigantic stars. As the stars approach
each other
their fierce outflows, called stellar
winds, crash together at several million
miles an hour
reaching temperatures of millions degrees
and creating X-rays.
With Swfit we weave mosaics that
allow us to study the evolution of young
stars in the LMC and SMC
all in one view.
These images are the highest resolution
wide field surveys of the galaxies
at the ultra-violet wavelength. 
On January 21st 2014 astronomers
discover an exceptionally close stellar
explosion
in M82 a galaxy located about 12 million
light years away.
Swifts ultraviolet optical telescope
imaged the brightening supernova the
very next day. 
When a neighboring red dwarf star named
DG CVn
erupted an enormous x-ray flare on April
23rd 2014
Swift caught it and monitored the eruption.
The blast was some 10,000 times more powerful
than the biggest flare we've ever seen
from our sun. 
3 unusually long lasting stellar
explosions discovered by Swift
established a previously unrecognized
class in GRB called ultra-long
gamma-ray bursts.
Astronomers think they arise from
the catastrophic death
supergiant stars hundreds of times
larger than the Sun.
On March 28th 2011 Swift detected
intense
x-ray emission from a galaxy
supermassive black hole
astronomers realized they were seeing
the signal of a sun-like star
being shredded by the black hole. In
falling gas was captured in accretion
disk
and powered an x-ray jet.  A record-setting
blasted gamma rays from a dying star in
a distant galaxy
wowed astronomers around the world in
April 2013
the blast produce the highest energy
light
have been detected from a GRB. 
UV, optickle, x-ray and gamma-ray observations
from Swift provided valuable data.
Asteroids crash all the time but the 
effects dissipate quickly.
So catching the aftermath recent collision
in 2010
something special.
Swift's ultraviolet vision help
astronomers rule out the possibility
they were seeing a comet.
A GRB so bright
it could have been seen by the naked
eye?  That's with Swift and ground-based
telescopes detected on March 19th 2008
thanks to a GRB jet aimed almost directly
at Earth.
Incredibly the light  from this dying star began its
travel 7.5 billion years ago.
On April 29th 2009
a five-second long burst of gamma rays
became the farthest explosion yet identified
by Swift. 
Its light had been traveling for
13.14 billion years
placing it among the most distant
objects known.
Using swift observations astronomers
identified an abrupt slowdown in the
rotation of a neutron star
an event dubbed in anti glitch the
discovery holds important clues for
understanding neutron star interiors
which contain some in the densest matter
in the universe. 
Swift observations combined with theoretical research have
shown that colliding neutron stars are
a likely explanation
for gamma-ray burst left in less than
two seconds.
NASA's swift mission ushered a new
era of research into gamma ray-bursts
As Swift begins its second decade of
operation
its speed flexibility and versatility make
it an important platform for studying
the most energetic and rapidly changing
phenomenon
in the cosmos
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