Swift catches first cosmic blasts

NASA's Swift space based telescope catches first cosmic blasts.

The Swift space telescope, launched in November, has seen its first gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) - the massive cosmic explosions it was built to study.
The telescope detected its first burst on 17 December, only a few days after its instruments were switched on.

On 19 December, the US space agency satellite caught three more.

GRBs are the most powerful explosions in the Universe, releasing more than one hundred billion times the energy our Sun emits in a year.

Swift orbits Earth in wait for a burst to come into its field of view.

Following a detection, the satellite veers round to point its X-ray telescope (XRT) and UV/Optical telescopes toward the blast.

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