Acapella!  Using the human voice as a fine instrument, a little like the Intel commercial on TV now, "Pa,Pa,Pa,Pum!"(upbeat Beethoven?) -- a very different kind of classic was created and performed 10 years ago, by a group of talented Astrophysicist working on or in adjacent scientific areas trying to catch the powerful Gamma Ray Bursts occuring randomly, but daily, all over the sky.

First detected by military satellites looking for violations of the nuclear test ban treaty, these bursts have been a mystery for astronomers and astophysiscists for more than 30 years. 

Image NASA, SWIFT mission site.

Click on the link. http:/swift.sonoma.edu/resources/multimedia/song/

Then read the words

http://swift.sonoma.edu/resources/multimedia/song/songtrans.html

Then back to the mpg link

swift.sonoma.edu/resources/multimedia/song/swiftmono.mp3

I like the song because it is about a great mystery!

The Group has written and performed many other songs.

http://www.astrocappella.com/

I did write a posting about GRBs, "Your purest faith and the brightese bright"  but this is excellent music that also has intellectual content.

The swift song has a catchy melody! I like the "Panchromatic Afterglow. . ."

In the last decade SWIFT has performed magnificently -- capturing the [thankfully distant] vast energies given off by objects most of the distance "back" to the beginning of time. [very close to the era of the "Big Bang"]

Recently [April 23,2009] SWIFT recorded a burst 13.035 billion light years away.  It was observed in gamma ray and x-ray light -- but not Visible Light. [where our eyes see]

NASA TEXT explains why Gamma Rays, and X-rays and UV which would be red-shifted into the visible range  are not visible at great distances: 

 "The lack of visible light alone suggested this could be a very distant object," explained team member Edo Berger of Harvard University.[red-shift 8.2]

Beyond a certain distance, the expansion of the universe shifts all optical emission into longer infrared wavelengths. While a star's ultraviolet light could be similarly shifted into the visible region, ultraviolet-absorbing hydrogen gas grows thicker at earlier times. "If you look far enough away, you can't see visible light from any object," he noted.

Recently SWIFT team members took 330 images of the sky covering the Andromeda Galaxy and produced the image bdlow in Ultraviolet.

Image Credit: NASA/Swift/Stefan Immler (GSFC) and Erin Grand (UMCP) 200,000 ly wide 100,000 ly tall.

Credit: Bill Schoening, Vanessa Harvey/REU program/NOAO/AURA/NSF  This image encompasses the same area as the Swift mosaic, above..

 http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/386910main_M31_optical_wide.jpg