Swift GUANO: Gamma-Ray Transient Event Archive from External Alerts

Swift Observatory's GUANO system, introduced in 2020, archives event-by-event data from its Burst Alert Telescope in response to transient alerts from other observatories. The table records the times of these external triggers and the archive locations for the retrieved BAT data, which includes photon arrival times, detector locations, and energies. This service is provided by NASA's HEASARC, which also populates additional parameters like galactic coordinates.

Use Cases

• Correlating gamma-ray photon data with transient alerts from other observatories based on the recorded trigger times.
• Analyzing high-energy event properties based on the described BAT data (arrival time, location, energy).
• Studying non-triggered gamma-ray events based on the GUANO system's capability to download data that did not trigger onboard algorithms.

Strengths

• Data originates from the Swift Observatory's Burst Alert Telescope, a NASA instrument.
• Event data includes arrival time to 100-microsecond accuracy and energy in 80 bins from 15 to 350 keV.
• The HEASARC database is updated in a timely fashion for new GUANO triggers.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data is limited to BAT event data only, as the satellite does not slew for GUANO events.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) HEASARC.

Collection Method

Generated at the Swift processing site from autonomous spacecraft-commanding pipeline requests, then ingested by HEASARC.

Time Range

Covers events from 2020 onward, when GUANO was introduced.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 17:41:15.906475; freshness should be verified.

Geography

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