NASA's SWIFT finds new black hole

Space.com is reporting that this morning (5/9/05) scientists received an alert from NASA's SWIFT orbiting gamma-ray telescope indicating unusual activity from a specific region of space. The telescope automatically re-oriented itself, imaged that area of the sky, and detected a gamma-ray burst from what appears to be the collision of two neutron stars to form a black hole. Astronomers, alerted by email, detected a visible light afterglow from the event.