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for hundreds of years thousands of years

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humans have thought the universe is a

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very static place figure out at night

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and look into the night sky you will see

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that things don't really change much the

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universe appeared very static for a long

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time we now know this is not true the

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universe is a highly dynamic place and

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things are happening all the time every

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single second a star explodes in a

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gigantic supernova explosion somewhere

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in the universe and they have to go and

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find it we have to build instruments

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that are capable of finding those

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unforeseen events way back in 1998 we

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were at a scientific meeting in Boulder

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Colorado and I was invited to invite a

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you know invitation only meeting and at

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that meeting six of us got together and

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we came up with the idea of creating

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Swift it was a group of people from

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Goddard and from Penn State Swift set

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out to combine gamma-ray instruments

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that could roughly find out where the

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gamma rays may be coming from but only

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with a very crude estimate and then

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through the design of this remarkable

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spacecraft to spin that spacecraft

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rapidly across the sky and point an

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x-ray telescope and an optical

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ultraviolet telescope at the possible

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location of the gamma ray burst

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whenever a gamma-ray burst goes off

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which happens about twice a week the

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satellite detects the gamma ray burst

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and it sends a message down to the

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ground and it goes out on a network to

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our cellphones and were paged what I

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love being a member of 50ms is carrying

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a blackberry on the side of my hip that

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became almost like a part of my body and

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and every time Swift discovered

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something unforeseen or a gamma-ray

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burst

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went off the BlackBerry star bright

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vibrating and I would

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run to the nearest computer as fast as I

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could

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and and this is something I miss now not

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working anymore for Swift this

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excitement that things can happen at any

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time and you don't know what it is I

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have on two occasions gotten a gamma-ray

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burst alert while I was giving a lecture

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about Swift and so I told the audience

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that here's the new gamma-ray burst

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coming in and we actually one time got

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it on the screen and watched the data as

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they were coming in in front of the

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audience I was woken up by GRB own I

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know 423 it was 4:00 in the morning it

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was really annoying it was five years

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into the mission so geo views were not

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so new and exciting then I was like oh

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yeah yet another GRB dealt with it went

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back to sleep woke up the next morning

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and there was information from

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ground-based telescopes that had

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observed this gamma-ray burst in the

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infrared that we're implying that it was

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a very distant gamma-ray burst at

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redshifts greater than each that was

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very exciting and the next night

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telescopes in Hawaii were able to

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confirm that redshift that it's at a

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redshift of Z of 8.2 that means that

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gamma ray bursts went off more than 13

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billion years ago it's 13 billion light

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years away we're seeing light that from

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a star that was only 700 million years

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after the Big Bang that's one of the

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most distant objects has ever been

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detected that was very cool in my case I

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had a different experience where it was

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Thanksgiving and we had my family and I

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had spent a large amount of time working

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to prevent the Thanksgiving dinner we

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had friends around and everything was

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ready the food was on the table

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and right as I put my fork into my

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turkey the my phone went off something

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had exploded in the universe with the

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detected it and we had to go to work so

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it doesn't always happen at convenient

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times but it is still exciting basically

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I'm on call 24 hours a day so it's hard

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to decide where my personal life starts

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and where my as Swift professional life

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ends as the astronomy and astrophysics

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community has

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engaged with Swift the scientists have

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learned new ways to use the observatory

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and its ability to rapidly follow up new

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sources has been seen as a really

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incredibly useful tool and so Swift is

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evolved from spending most of its time

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observing gamma-ray bursts and following

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them for sometimes weeks or months

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afterwards to doing more science that's

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proposed by the community to study other

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types of objects we look at supernova

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novi black hole transients comets

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flaring stars all different kinds of

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objects basically every year Swift makes

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a new discovery that changes some field

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of astrophysics we have made many many

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discoveries in other areas we've

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discovered something called a tidal

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disruption event that's when a star is

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falling into a black hole and gets

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ripped to shreds and we see the light

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from that collapse onto the black hole

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that's very very exciting we've made

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important discoveries about comets

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how much water and how much other

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material there is in comets that people

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didn't know before we have actually seen

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a supernova star that blows up at the

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moment when the light broke out from the

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surface of the exploding star every year

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for the ten years of Swift we've had one

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of these really important discoveries it

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is the Cadillac of satellites it does

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everything in the transient filter in

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one package and mind you this is a small

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packets it's an Explorer mission we have

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a huge amount of capability Swift's

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ability to observe many objects in one

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day I think is what makes it special as

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well as its ability to respond very

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quickly to new events in the in the

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universe norther mission is as agile as

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we are Swift performs every day five to

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seven target of opportunities or

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societal requested by the astronomers to

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be observed and they are observed every

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days and and this is a very powerful

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capability that the community now is

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taking advantage of I knew the

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instrument I knew its capabilities but

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I've been extremely impressed with the

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team of people that behind

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the scenes make the mission work there

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is a group of duty scientists mission

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planners the flight operations team that

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make sure that we can continue to

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observe as many targets as we do we can

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continue to do the rapid response that

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is really unique to the observatory and

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without such a dedicated crew of people

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behind the scenes I don't think so it

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would be nearly as successful as it has

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been Swift mission has been extremely

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successful in the past up to now and it

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will no doubt continue to be successful

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in the future and I am sure that a lot

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of serendipitous science is just waiting

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for us the universe has a lot of Secrets

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that have not been revealed yet we do

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believe that shrift can and will reveal

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many more mysteries and puzzles in the

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universe we don't know what will happen

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over the next 10 years hoping that Swift

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will still give us exciting data but

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what we do know is that Swift will give

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us exciting new data because of its pure

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nature this is what it was built for to

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study new unforeseen unexpected events

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and they will inevitably happen it's

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been a part of my life every day for the

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last 20 years I love it it's produced so

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much great science and it's been very

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fulfilling but every day I think about

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this delicate instrumentation in the

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harsh environment orbiting the Earth and

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how its able to keep going all of those

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years and I very often will just look up