Instruments aboard NASA's Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, launched in 1991, have been detecting the bursts for the past decade and locating them within general regions of sky roughly as large as 1,600 full moons. By the time, astronomical telescopes can search such an area, the burst has long faded. Physicists at Goddard, the University of Michigan, and the Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore national laboratories used an an Internet link to monitor Compton detections of gamma ray burst events. Four of the Canon cameras automatically aim at the spot where the Compton detected the bursts and start clicking away. The light grew increasingly brighter for several minutes, then faded.
Astronomers are convinced it was the visible portion of the event that created the gamma ray signal.
But it was little more than a small dot that became a large dot before fading away altogether. The event that caused the light appears to have happened 9 billion years ago, said Michigan physicist Carl Akerlof, director of the project. But when the Swift satellite is in orbit, the observations will continue. NASA astronomer Ann Parsons said gamma ray sensors on the satellite will cover virtually the entire sky at all times. Small blocks of lead will be scattered over the sensor panels in random arrangements, she said.