Swift team awarded top high energy astronomy prize (Forwarded)

Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council
Swindon, U.K.

Contacts:

Gill Ormrod
PPARC Press Office
Tel: +44 (0)1793 442 012

Dr Julian Osborne
Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of Leicester
Tel: +44 (0)116 252 3598

Dr Mat Page
Mullard Space Science Laboratory, UCL
Tel: +44 (0)1483 204 283

Lynn Cominsky
Swift PIO
Tel: +1 707 664 2655

Dr Ilana Harrus
High Energy Astrophysics Division Press Officer
Tel: +1 301 286 9649

17 January 2007

Swift team awarded top high energy astronomy prize

This year's prestigious Bruno Rossi Prize has been awarded to National
Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) scientist Neil Gehrels and the
team of scientists working on NASA's Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Explorer mission,
including UK scientists from the University of Leicester and University
College London's Mullard Space Science Laboratory, for major advances in the
scientific understanding of gamma-ray bursts.

The prize is given each year by the High Energy Astrophysics Division (HEAD)
of the American Astronomical Society (AAS), the largest professional
organization of astronomers in the United States.

Swift, which launched on November 20, 2004, was designed to rapidly detect,
locate, and observe gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), powerful cosmic explosions
which astronomers think are the birth cries of black holes. GRBs were first
observed in the 1960s, and were a complete mystery until the mid 1990s. To
date, Swift has detected over 200 GRBs, and its rapid response -- it was
named after the bird, which catches its prey "on the fly" -- has been
critical to understanding these titanic events.

"This is a great recognition of all the wonderful science coming from Swift
and the years of hard work that the team has done to make it possible," said
Neil Gehrels, the Principal Investigator for the Swift mission. "Swift is a
remarkable machine which is still going strong. We expect even more great
things from it over the coming years."

UK scientists from UCL's Mullard Space Science Laboratory and the University
of Leicester have a strong involvement in two of the telescopes onboard
Swift and continue to support the ongoing operation of the spacecraft and
its instruments and have been involved in many of the new discoveries made
by Swift. This is the first time that a UK mission team has been awarded the
Rossi Prize.

Professor Keith Mason, UK lead investigator on the Ultra Violet/Optical
Telescope and Chief Executive of PPARC said, "This is a fantastic accolade
for the entire Swift team. To date the spacecraft has already made
observations to determine the precise location of short gamma-ray bursts and
discovered enormously bright X-ray flares in the early afterglows."

Dr Julian Osborne, Lead Investigator for Swift at the University of
Leicester said, "Swift has been wonderfully successful at discovering new
things about these incredibly energetic explosions in the distant universe,
we are especially proud that the X-ray camera provided by the University of
Leicester has been responsible for most of these discoveries. The Leicester
team greatly appreciate the honour of this award, and look forward to
learning more with Swift in this fascinating area of science."

Among Swift's notable observations have been:

* The first detection of an afterglow (the lingering, fading glow) of a
short burst, GRB050509, thought to be caused by the collision of two
ultradense neutron stars.

* The detection of the most distant GRB ever seen (GRB 050904), lying at a
distance of 13 billion light years from the Earth.

* The discovery of the nearby GRB 060218 that was coincident with a
supernova explosion (SN 2006aj)

* X-ray and UV observations of NASA's Deep Impact probe when it smashed into
comet 9/P Tempel 1 in July 2005, helping solar system scientists determine
how much debris was ejected by the impact.

* Highly-detailed data of a powerful flare from a nearby magnetar, a
tremendously magnetic neutron star, which was so bright it saturated Swift's
detectors and actually physically impacted the Earth's magnetic field in
December 2004.

Besides observing GRBs, Swift has several secondary scientific goals,
including observing supernovae (powerful stellar explosions which can be
used to map out the shape and fate of the Universe) and making the first
high-energy survey of the entire sky since the 1980s.

The HEAD-AAS awards the Rossi Prize in recognition of significant
contributions as well as recent and original work in high-energy
astrophysics. Past awards have been given for work, both theoretical and
observational, in the fields of neutrinos, cosmic rays, gamma rays and
X-rays. The prize is in honor of Professor Bruno Rossi, an authority on
cosmic-ray physics and a pioneer in the field of X-ray astronomy. Bruno
Rossi died in 1993. The prize also includes an engraved certificate and a
765 ($1,500) award.

For more information on Swift, visit:

* Swift site
http://www.swift.ac.uk/
* NASA site
http://swift.gsfc.nasa.gov/
* List of Swift's significant observations
http://swift.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/swift/results/releases/

Rossi Prize information is located on the AAS site,
http://www.aas.org/head/rossi/rossi.prize.html

Notes to editors

UK involvement

The UK role in Swift has been to provide core elements of the narrow field
instruments (the X-ray telescope and the UV/Optical telescope), utilising
mature technology already developed for the European Space Agency (ESA)
XMM-Newton mission, and the JeT-X instrument.
University of Leicester

lead role in the X-ray telescope design, focal plane camera assembly and
X-ray design (using past experience from JET-X and XMM-Newton). The UK SWIFT
Science DATA Centre, at Leicester, provides an archive of all SWIFT data,
with open access for the wider UK astronomical community. The Leicester team
was led before launch by Prof Alan Wells, and is now led by Dr Julian
Osborne. The Chief Engineer is Mr Tony Abbey; other team members a

* Dr Andrew Beardmore
* Dr Phil Evans
* Dr Mike Goad
* Dr Olivier Godet
* Dr Kim Page
* Dr Paul O'Brien
* Dr Evert Rol
* Dr Rhaana Starling
* Dr Laurence Tyler
* Dr Simon Vaughan
* Dr Richard Willingale

Mullard Space Science Laboratory, UCL

The major part of the UV/Optical telescope was constructed at MSSL using
designs and expertise from the XMM-Newton Optical Monitor. The MSSL team was
led by Prof Keith Mason until August 2005, and is now led by Dr Mat Page.
Other team members a

* Dr Alice Breeveld
* Dr Alex Blustin
* Mary Carter
* Dr Massimiliano De Pasquale
* Barry Hancock
* Howard Huckle
* Tom Kennedy
* Samantha Oates
* Dr Shashi Pandey
* Dr Tracey Poole
* Patricia Schady
* Phil Smith
* Dr Vladimir Yershov
* Dr Silvia Zane

Swift, a medium-class explorer mission, is managed by NASA Goddard. Swift is
a NASA mission with participation of the Italian Space Agency and PPARC in
the United Kingdom. It was built in collaboration with national
laboratories, universities and international partners, including:

* Penn State University
* Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico
* Sonoma State University
* Rohnert Park, Calif.
* University of Leicester, England
* Mullard Space Science Laboratory in Dorking, Surrey, England
* Brera Observatory in Milan
* ASI Science Data Center

About PPARC,
http://www.pparc.ac.uk/Ap/intro.asp