Swift Stories
NASA’s Swift Resumes Science Operations
NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory resumed science observations April 3 following a successful software update that enables the spacecraft to function using only two gyroscopes (gyros). Swift entered safe mode March 15 after experiencing degrading performance from one of its…
How NASA Chases and Investigates Bright Cosmic Blips
Stephen Lesage’s phone started vibrating just after halftime on Oct. 9, 2022, while he was watching a soccer game in Atlanta with a friend. When Lesage saw the incoming messages, the match no longer seemed important. There had been a…
NASA’s Webb Makes First Detection of Heavy Element From Star Merger
Webb’s study of the second-brightest gamma-ray burst ever seen reveals tellurium. A team of scientists has used multiple space and ground-based telescopes, including NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, and NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, to…