BBCnews is carrying this summary of the soon-to-be-launched Swift probe. Its mission is to try and solve one of the most enduring mysteries of modern cosmology: gamma ray bursts. First detected decades ago, these extremely powerful and extremely distant phenomena have never really been adequately explained. Some think they're the birth pangs of black holes, others that they're the result of neutron star collisions. By detecting hundreds instead of dozens of these events, the Swift probe should provide far more and better data to use in figuring out just what, exactly, these gigantic lights really are.