December 24, 2004
The night sky on your birthday is never quite the same twice — the planets shift, the constellations drift, the Moon wears a different phase.
Swift RocketCam
Birthday · December 24, 2004
A little universe, just for you
Your date.
Ready to give.
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APOD published December 24, 2004. Full image credits are on the original APOD entry below. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
A forward-facing RocketCam (TM) mounted inside the payload fairing of a Delta II rocket captured these dramatic video frames on November 20th -- as the Swift satellite observatory journeyed to an orbit 600 kilometers above planet Earth. Some frames were interpolated to correct for transmission problems. The sequence shows the fairing separation, the second stage rotating past the Earth's limb, and finally the 1500 kilogram satellite itself separating from the second stage. Observing at optical, ultraviolet, x-ray and gamma-ray energies, Swift is designed to locate the sources of energetic gamma-ray bursts and watch as their afterglows fade in the distant Universe. Still in its checkout phase, the observatory is already detecting the high energy flashes from these awe-inspiring cosmic blasts.