PARIS: A French-Chinese telescope satellite will blast off this weekend on a mission to hunt down gamma-ray bursts, the most powerful explosions in the universe.
The light from these almighty blasts has travelled billions of light years to reach Earth, so scientists believe they could hold answers to some mysteries of the universe's youth.
Aiming to learn more, the Space Variable Objects Monitor (SVOM) is scheduled to blast off on a Chinese Long March 2C rocket from the Xichang launch site in China's Sichuan province on Saturday.
The spacecraft, which has two Chinese and two French instruments on board, will then orbit 625 kilometres above Earth.
Chen Lan, an analyst specialising in China's space programme, highlighted the "political significance" of the joint mission.
During a "dark time" for relations between China and the West, the mission "shows that scientific cooperation can still be continued despite difficulties," he said.
SVOM's mission is to use its X-ray vision to track down the source of gamma-ray bursts, which are detected in the sky around once every day.
This cosmic investigation began back in "the middle of the Cold War," said Bertrand Cordier, the chief scientist for France's contribution to SVOM.
Several missions, including Nasa's Swift telescope, have already shed some light on these bright enigmas.
Considered to be the most powerful events in the known universe, these bursts are flashes of the highest-energy light, which emit gamma rays and last anywhere between a fraction of a second and tens of seconds. The explosion is followed by an "afterglow" which can last hours and "crosses the entire universe to reach us," said Susanna Vergani of the Paris Observatory.
Shorter bursts are thought to be caused by massive neutron stars smashing into each other, or a neutron star being swallowed by a black hole.
Longer bursts are believed to be from some of the universe's earliest stars -- massive beasts far larger than our sun -- going supernova.
Gamma-ray bursts allow scientists to "investigate the distant universe," including the mysterious chemical process that birthed the first stars and galaxies, Vergani said. — AFP
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