Sharjah24 – AFP: A French-Chinese satellite blasted off Saturday on a hunt for the mightiest explosions in the universe, in a notable example of cooperation between a Western power and the Asian giant.
Developed by engineers from both countries, the Space Variable Objects Monitor (SVOM) will seek out gamma-ray bursts, the light from which has travelled billions of light years to reach Earth.
The 930-kilogram satellite carrying four instruments, two French, two Chinese, took off around 3:00 pm (0700 GMT) aboard a Chinese Long March 2-C rocket from a space base in Xichang, in the southwestern province of Sichuan, AFP journalists witnessed.
Gamma-ray bursts generally occur after the explosion of huge stars -- those more than 20 times as big as the sun -- or the fusion of compact stars.
The extremely bright cosmic beams can give off a blast of energy equivalent to over a billion billion suns.
Observing them is like "looking back in time, as the light from these objects takes a long time to reach us", Ore Gottlieb, an astrophysicist at the Flatiron Institute's Center for Astrophysics in New York, said.
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