Journal from 4/28
NASA's Swift observatory has spotted it's 500th cosmic explosion in deep space. Explosions occur because of gamma rays, which are the highest-energy form of light. Gamma ray bursts are very brief but phenomenal, so Swift observatory has been hunting for these incredibly short-lived but awesomely enormous explosions. The sources of most bursts are dying stars that are typically billions of light-years away from Earth, which means they are not only extremely far away, but also extremely energetic and powerful since they can be observed at such great distances. From what I've read, the 500 explosions have been viewed from 2004 until now.
While in my mind Swift just wants to watch explosions, this clearly isn't the case because realistically they could just rent a Michael Bay film. In actuality, Swift's job is to to pinpoint the explosion and relay the information to scientists so that they can observe the aftermath.
One especially amazing thing is that while 500 explosions have been recorded, only the ones aimed in Earth's direction can be picked up by the observatory. Who knows how many others have occurred that we aren't even able to see!
Article: Observatory sees 500th deep-space explosion
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