NASA Detects One of Closest and Brightest Gamma Ray Bursts

The Universe clearly works weekends; delivering one of the brightest and closest gamma ray bursts yet on Saturday, March 29, at 6:37 a.m. EST.

NASA's High-Energy Transient Explorer (HETE) detected the burst, signaling the birth of a black hole, in the constellation Leo. For more than 30 seconds, the burst out shone the entire Universe in gamma rays, and its afterglow was still over a trillion times brighter than the sun two hours later. This was the brightest burst yet detected by HETE and is in the top one percent of all bursts in terms of intrinsic brightness. Within seconds, HETE nailed down a location and subsequently relayed the coordinates to the astronomy community, allowing hundreds of scientists and amateur astronomers to join the observation, from Australia to Finland and across the ocean to America. Observations continue to pour in as scientists attempt to unravel what caused the burst. The region is still too bright to determine which galaxy this burst came from.

For more on HETE detection of the gamma ray bursts, go to: http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/news-
release/releases/2003/h03-126.htm

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NASA 's Mission:
*To understand and protect our home planet
*To explore the Universe and search for life
*To inspire the next generation of explorers
…as only NASA can

For a further details of the NASA mission, go to: http://www.nasa.gov/bios/vision.html

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In observance and in celebration of marking a century of flight in 2003, Goddard News will feature historical NASA flight tidbits throughout the year. This Week in History: Gemini 3 was the first crewed Earth-orbiting spacecraft of the Gemini series launched on March 23, 1965. Astronauts Virgil "Gus" Grissom and John Young were the pilots. Some the primary objectives were to evaluate the two-man Gemini design, the worldwide tracking network, the orbit attitude and maneuver system, the control reentry flight path and the landing port. For more on the Gemini 3 mission, go to: http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/database/
MasterCatalog?sc=1965-024A

For more information on the Centennial of Flight celebration events, go to: http://www.centennialofflight.gov/