Triggered by a satellite signal, the telescope slews across the sky and zeroes in on a gamma-ray burst, capturing the explosion’s optical emissions within seconds. That, at least, is the plan. So far, though, it has played out like that just once, on 23 January 1999. The tantalizing GRB990123 has stoked scientists’ enthusiasm, and several experiments using small, ground-based, robotic telescopes to tackle big questions about gamma-ray bursts are in the works.
Their edge is speed: By rushing to the scene, these telescopes stand a chance of revealing the physics of “the biggest bangs since the Big Bang,” says Bradley Schaefer, an astrophysicist at the University of Texas at Austin and a member of the Robotic Optical Transient Search Experiment (ROTSE). Large telescopes have a much slower response time, and are left staring hours later at the afterglow, which can yield the distance to gamma-ray bursts and information about their...
