SVOM artist impression | |||||||||||
Names | Spaceborne multiband astronomical Variable Objects Monitor mission | ||||||||||
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Mission type | Gamma-ray burst observatory [1] | ||||||||||
Operator | CNES / CNSA | ||||||||||
Website | http://www.svom.fr/en/ | ||||||||||
Mission duration | 3 years (planned) | ||||||||||
Spacecraft properties | |||||||||||
Spacecraft | SVOM | ||||||||||
Launch mass | 950 kg (2,090 lb) | ||||||||||
Dimensions | 2.5 × 2.8 m (8 ft 2 in × 9 ft 2 in) | ||||||||||
Power | 800 watts | ||||||||||
Start of mission | |||||||||||
Launch date | 22 June 2024 (07:00:00 UTC) [2] [3] | ||||||||||
Rocket | Long March 2C [4] | ||||||||||
Launch site | Xichang Satellite Launch Center | ||||||||||
Contractor | China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) | ||||||||||
Orbital parameters | |||||||||||
Reference system | Geocentric orbit | ||||||||||
Regime | Low Earth orbit | ||||||||||
Perigee altitude | 625 km (388 mi) | ||||||||||
Apogee altitude | 625 km (388 mi) | ||||||||||
Inclination | 30° | ||||||||||
Period | 90.0 minutes | ||||||||||
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The Space Variable Objects Monitor (SVOM) is a small X-ray telescope satellite developed by China National Space Administration (CNSA), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the French Space Agency (CNES), [5] launched on 22 June 2024 (07:00:00 UTC). [2]
SVOM will study the explosions of massive stars by analysing the resulting gamma-ray bursts. The light-weight X-ray mirror for SVOM weighs just 1 kg (2.2 lb). [5] SVOM will add new capabilities to the work of finding gamma-ray bursts currently being done by the multinational satellite Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Mission . [5] Its anti-solar pointing strategy makes the Earth cross the field of view of its payload every orbit. [6]
Using synergy between space and ground instruments, the mission has these scientific objectives: [7]
The selected orbit is circular with an altitude of 600 km (370 mi) and an inclination angle of 30° with a precession period of 60 days. [8] The payload is composed of the following four main instruments: [8] [9]
The ground segment includes a set of three ground-based dedicated instruments – two robotic Ground Follow-up Telescopes (GFT) and an optical monitor, Ground Wide Angle Camera (GWAC) – which will complement the space borne instruments. A large fraction of GRB will have redshift determinations, an observing strategy optimized to facilitate follow-up observations by large ground-based spectroscopic telescopes.
A key elements of the SVOM mission are the Ground Wide Angle Cameras (GWACs) and the Ground Follow-up Telescopes (GFTs). [14] [15]
In gamma-ray astronomy, gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are immensely energetic explosions that have been observed in distant galaxies, being the brightest and most extreme explosive events in the entire universe, as NASA describes the bursts as the "most powerful class of explosions in the universe". They are the most energetic and luminous electromagnetic events since the Big Bang. Gamma-ray bursts can last from ten milliseconds to several hours. After the initial flash of gamma rays, an "afterglow" is emitted, which is longer lived and usually emitted at longer wavelengths.
Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, previously called the Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Explorer, is a NASA three-telescope space observatory for studying gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) and monitoring the afterglow in X-ray, and UV/Visible light at the location of a burst. It was launched on 20 November 2004, aboard a Delta II launch vehicle. Headed by principal investigator Neil Gehrels until his death in February 2017, the mission was developed in a joint partnership between Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) and an international consortium from the United States, United Kingdom, and Italy. The mission is operated by Pennsylvania State University as part of NASA's Medium Explorer program (MIDEX).
GRB 970228 was the first gamma-ray burst (GRB) for which an afterglow was observed. It was detected on 28 February 1997 at 02:58 UTC. Since 1993, physicists had predicted GRBs to be followed by a lower-energy afterglow, but until this event, GRBs had only been observed in highly luminous bursts of high-energy gamma rays ; this resulted in large positional uncertainties which left their nature very unclear.
Cornelis A. "Neil" Gehrels was an American astrophysicist specializing in the field of gamma-ray astronomy. He was Chief of the Astroparticle Physics Laboratory at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) from 1995 until his death, and was best known for his work developing the field from early balloon instruments to today's space observatories such as the NASA Swift mission, for which he was the principal investigator. He was leading the WFIRST wide-field infrared telescope forward toward a launch in the mid-2020s. He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
High Energy Transient Explorer 2 was a NASA astronomical satellite with international participation. The satellite bus for the first HETE-1 was designed and built by AeroAstro, Inc. of Herndon, Virginia and was lost during launch on 4 November 1996; the replacement satellite, HETE-2 was built by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) based on the original HETE design.
GRB 080916C is a gamma-ray burst (GRB) that was recorded on September 16, 2008, in the Carina constellation and detected by NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. The burst lasted for 23 minutes. It is one of the most extreme gamma-ray bursts ever recorded, and was the most energetic gamma-ray burst ever recorded, until GRB 221009A was recorded in 2022. The explosion had the energy of approximately 9000 type Ia supernovae if the emission was isotropically emitted, and the gas jets emitting the initial gamma rays moved at a minimum velocity of approximately 299,792,158 m/s, making this blast one of the most extreme recorded.
GRB 970508 was a gamma-ray burst (GRB) detected on May 8, 1997, at 21:42 UTC; it is historically important as the second GRB with a detected afterglow at other wavelengths, the first to have a direct redshift measurement of the afterglow, and the first to be detected at radio wavelengths.
The history of gamma-ray began with the serendipitous detection of a gamma-ray burst (GRB) on July 2, 1967, by the U.S. Vela satellites. After these satellites detected fifteen other GRBs, Ray Klebesadel of the Los Alamos National Laboratory published the first paper on the subject, Observations of Gamma-Ray Bursts of Cosmic Origin. As more and more research was done on these mysterious events, hundreds of models were developed in an attempt to explain their origins.
GRB 051221A was a gamma ray burst (GRB) that was detected by NASA's Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Mission on December 21, 2005. A gamma-ray burst is a highly luminous flash of gamma rays, the most energetic form of electromagnetic radiation. The coordinates of the burst were α=21h 54m 50.7s, δ=16° 53′ 31.9″, and it lasted about 1.4 seconds. The same satellite discovered X-ray emission from the same object, and the GMOS Instrument on the Gemini Observatory discovered an afterglow in the visible spectrum. This was observed for the next ten days, allowing a redshift of Z = 0.5464 to be determined for the host galaxy.
GRB 990123 is a gamma-ray burst which was detected on January 23, 1999. It was the first GRB for which a simultaneous optical flash was detected. Astronomers first managed to obtain a visible-light image of a GRB as it occurred on January 23, 1999, using the ROTSE-I telescope in Los Alamos, New Mexico. The ROTSE-I was operated by a team under Dr. Carl W. Akerlof of the University of Michigan and included members from Los Alamos National Laboratory and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The robotic telescope was fully automated, responding to signals from NASA's BATSE instrument aboard the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory within seconds, without human intervention. In the dark hours of the morning of January 23, 1999, the Compton satellite recorded a gamma-ray burst that lasted for about a minute and a half. There was a peak of gamma and X-ray emission 25 seconds after the event was first detected, followed by a somewhat smaller peak 40 seconds after the beginning of the event. The emission then fizzled out in a series of small peaks over the next 50 seconds, and eight minutes after the event had faded to a hundredth of its maximum brightness. The burst was so strong that it ranked in the top 2% of all bursts detected.
Gamma-ray astronomy is a subfield of astronomy where scientists observe and study celestial objects and phenomena in outer space which emit cosmic electromagnetic radiation in the form of gamma rays, i.e. photons with the highest energies at the very shortest wavelengths. Radiation below 100 keV is classified as X-rays and is the subject of X-ray astronomy.
GRB 000131 was a gamma-ray burst (GRB) that was detected on 31 January 2000 at 14:59 UTC. A gamma-ray burst is a highly luminous flash associated with an explosion in a distant galaxy and producing gamma rays, the most energetic form of electromagnetic radiation, and often followed by a longer-lived "afterglow" emitted at longer wavelengths.
GRB 020813 was a gamma-ray burst (GRB) that was detected on 13 August 2002 at 02:44 UTC. A gamma-ray burst is a highly luminous flash associated with an explosion in a distant galaxy and producing gamma rays, the most energetic form of electromagnetic radiation, and often followed by a longer-lived "afterglow" emitted at longer wavelengths.
GRB 011211 was a gamma-ray burst (GRB) detected on December 11, 2001. A gamma-ray burst is a highly luminous flash associated with an explosion in a distant galaxy and producing gamma rays, the most energetic form of electromagnetic radiation, and often followed by a longer-lived "afterglow" emitted at longer wavelengths.
GRB 070714B was a gamma-ray burst (GRB) that was detected on 14 July 2007 at 04:59 UTC. A gamma-ray burst is a highly luminous flash associated with an explosion in a distant galaxy and producing gamma rays, the most energetic form of electromagnetic radiation, and often followed by a longer-lived "afterglow" emitted at longer wavelengths.
GRB 101225A, also known as the "Christmas burst", was a cosmic explosion first detected by NASA's Swift observatory on Christmas Day 2010. The gamma-ray emission lasted at least 28 minutes, which is unusually long. Follow-up observations of the burst's afterglow by the Hubble Space Telescope and ground-based observatories were unable to determine the object's distance using spectroscopic methods.
GRB 130427A was a record-setting gamma-ray burst, discovered starting on April 27, 2013. This GRB was associated to SN 2013cq, of which the appearance of optical signal was predicted on May 2, 2013 and detected on May 13, 2013. The Fermi space observatory detected a gamma-ray with an energy of at least 94 billion electron volts. It was simultaneously detected by the Burst Alert Telescope aboard the Swift telescope and was the brightest burst Swift had ever detected. It was one of the five closest GRBs, at about 3.6 billion light-years away, and was comparatively long-lasting.
Fermi's Large Area Telescope (LAT) recorded one gamma ray with an energy of at least 94 billion electron volts (GeV), or some 35 billion times the energy of visible light, and about three times greater than the LAT's previous record. The GeV emission from the burst lasted for hours, and it remained detectable by the LAT for the better part of a day, setting a new record for the longest gamma-ray emission from a GRB.
GRB 190114C was an extreme gamma-ray burst explosion from a galaxy 4.5 billion light years away (z=0.4245; magnitude=15.60est) near the Fornax constellation, that was initially detected in January 2019. The afterglow light emitted soon after the burst was found to be tera-electron volt radiation from inverse Compton emission, identified for the first time. According to the astronomers, "We observed a huge range of frequencies in the electromagnetic radiation afterglow of GRB 190114C. It is the most extensive to date for a gamma-ray burst." Also, according to other astronomers, "light detected from the object had the highest energy ever observed for a GRB: 1 Tera electron volt (TeV) -- about one trillion times as much energy per photon as visible light"; another source stated, "the brightest light ever seen from Earth [to date].".
Filippo Frontera is an Italian astrophysicist and professor, who deals with astronomical investigations on celestial gamma-rays.
GRB 221009A was an extraordinarily bright and very energetic gamma-ray burst (GRB) jointly discovered by the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory and the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope on October 9, 2022. The gamma-ray burst was ten minutes long, but was detectable for more than ten hours following initial detection. Despite being around two billion light-years away, it was powerful enough to affect Earth's atmosphere, having the strongest effect ever recorded by a gamma-ray burst on the planet. The peak luminosity of GRB 221009A was measured by Konus-Wind to be ~ 2.1 × 1047 W and by Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor to be ~ 1.0 × 1047 W over its 1.024s interval. A burst as energetic and as close to Earth as 221009A is thought to be a once-in-10,000-year event. It was the brightest and most energetic gamma-ray burst ever recorded, with some dubbing it the BOAT, or Brightest Of All Time.
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