Pictured: An artist’s rendition of the Swift Observatory, credit NASA

NASA has a satellite with mission control in State College! 

The Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, whose Mission Operations Center is located 2.5 miles from Penn State’s campus, is a three-telescope space observatory, launched in 2004. Initially, its mission was to investigate the origin of gamma ray bursts, the most powerful explosions (since the Big Bang) in the universe. And it did!

Now, it’s pivoted to search for the source of gravitational waves, aka “ripples across the fabric of spacetime.” (Never been jealous of a telescope’s job description before now, how ‘bout you?)

If your astrophysics is a little dusty, this article can help! It breaks down the science behind Swift’s missions and some of the amazing things it’s helped us discover so far with its well over half a million observations.