How Gamma-Ray Bursts Work
On 23 October 2026 NASA ended the science mission of its Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory: after 22 years and more than 2,000 gamma-ray bursts, atmospheric drag had pulled it too low, and a robotic rescue failed in August. This film explains what Swift was built to catch: how satellites watching for nuclear tests found mysterious gamma-ray flashes in 1967; why bursts arriving from every direction pointed beyond our galaxy; how afterglows discovered in 1997 revealed distances of billions of light-years; why bursts come in long and short kinds; how narrow jets from collapsing giant stars make the long ones; how Swift's autonomous telescopes chased them; how a gravitational wave in 2017 proved that colliding neutron stars make short bursts and forge gold; the record-breaking burst of 2022; and what a burst could do to Earth.
The brightest flashes in the universe
What gamma-ray bursts are, and how we learned it.
A flash from nowhere
Found while watching for bombs.
Near or far?
Where they come from tells us how far.
Beams of light
Short bursts and long ones.
Swift
A telescope that turns itself.
Colliding stars
A ripple in space, then a flash.
The brightest of all
Felt in Earth’s upper atmosphere.
Flashes from the edge of time
Swift falls, the watch goes on.
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