Of the three telescopes carried by NASA's Swift satellite, only one captures cosmic light at energies similar to those seen by the human eye. Although small by the standards of ground-based observatories¹, Swift's Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope (UVOT) plays a critical role in rapidly pinpointing² the locations of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), the brightest explosions in the cosmos³. But as the proxy⁴（代理） to the human eye aboard Swift, the UVOT takes some amazing pictures. The Swift team is celebrating eight years of UVOT operations by collecting more than 100 of the instrument's best snapshots in a web-based photo gallery (http://www.swift.psu.edu/uvot/coolPics.php). The images also can be viewed with the free Swift Explorer Mission iPhone app (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/swift-explorer/id465669299?mt=8) developed by the Swift Mission Operations Center (MOC), which is located in State College, Pa., and operated by Penn State.

 

Swift has detected an average of about 90 GRBs a year since its launch in 2004. "When we aren't studying GRBs, we use the satellite's unique capabilities⁵ to engage in other scientific investigations⁶, some of which produce beautiful images from the UVOT that we're delighted to be able to share with the public," said Michael Siegel, the lead scientist on the UVOT and a research associate in astronomy and astrophysics（天体物理学） at the MOC.

 

The targets range from comets and star clusters to supernova remnants, nearby galaxies⁷ and active galaxies powered by supermassive black holes.

 

"One of our more challenging projects in the past was completing an ultraviolet mosaic⁸ of M31, the famous Andromeda galaxy⁹," said Stefan Immler, a member of the Swift team at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "Because the galaxy is so much larger than the UVOT field of view, we had to take dozens of pictures and blend them together to show the whole object."

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