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GREENBELT, Md. - The birth of a black hole has been captured for the first time, a
NASA scientist said Monday.

NASA's Swift orbiting observatory detected the gamma ray burst of the collision between two dense neutron stars about early Monday and pointed its visible light and X-ray telescopes at the collision about a minute later, said Neil Gehrels, lead scientist for the Swift mission.

"The birth cry of a black hole is one way people like to put it," Gehrels said, adding the huge flash of gamma rays was "seen across the whole universe."

The satellite recorded the x-rays from the collision, but the visible light was too faint to be detected by the satellite. However, alerts sent to ground-based telescopes enabled them to view the afterglow of the collision, Gehrels said.

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Gamma Ray Detection