Astrophysics

Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory

Pointed Observatory · Competed · PI-led · Launched on November 20, 2004 · Completed · LCC: $250M/$456M (2025 $)Life-cycle cost: NASA’s reported cost to build, launch, and operate a mission through its prime mission, plus documented partner contributions, in 2025 dollars. Extended missions are not included. Methods · Wikipedia

Scope Active Mission WindowActivePapers published from the first full month after science operations begin through two years after the mission ends. Citations are counted through the third calendar year after each paper appears. For Swift, papers published May 1, 2005 to January 1, 2024. Methods LifetimeLifetimeEvery tracked publication to date, with every citation to date. For Swift, papers published from 2005 to November 3, 2026. Methods
Tracked publicationsTracked publications: peer-reviewed papers we found that name the mission or its instruments in their titles, abstracts, or keywords. Papers that used the data without naming it are missed. Methods5,527
CitationsCitations: every citation these publications have drawn to date. Older missions have had longer to collect them. Methods233,870
Citation indices
h-indexh-index: the largest h such that h papers have at least h citations each. It only grows with time, so older missions score higher. Methods185
g-indexg-index: the largest g for which the g most-cited papers together hold at least g² citations. Like the h-index, but it lets the most-cited papers count for more. Methods294
m-indexm-index: a mission’s h-index divided by the years since its first peer-reviewed paper. It falls every 1 January even when nothing else changes; the figure shown is as of November 3, 2026. It also discounts the long operating life that larger missions paid for. Methods8.4
toritori (total research impact, from SciX): for every paper citing one of the mission’s papers, 1 divided by the citing paper’s reference count times the cited paper’s author count, summed, with self-citations removed. It favors citations from papers with short reference lists and from outside the mission’s own authors. Computed over the tracked citation graph, which can be slightly incomplete. Always over every tracked publication to date, whichever scope is chosen. Methods641
riqriq (research impact quotient): 1,000 times the square root of tori, divided by the years since the mission’s first paper. A rate, not a total, so it does not keep growing with age the way the h-index and tori do. Like tori, always over every tracked publication to date. Methods1,101

Publications and citations by year (lifetime)

Publications per yearCumulative citations

Institutional contributions (lifetime)The institutions SciX lists for each paper’s authors, as printed on the paper, located through the Research Organization Registry. A square counts a paper once, however many of its authors worked there. Methods

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Tracked publications over the lifetime (5,527)

All publications CSV · JSON

  1. The Swift X-Ray Telescope

    Burrows, David N., 2005, SSRv

    2,852 lifetime citations

  2. First Sagittarius A* Event Horizon Telescope Results. I. The Shadow of the Supermassive Black Hole in the Center of the Milky Way

    Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration, 2022, ApJ

    2,498 lifetime citations

  3. The Swift Ultra-Violet/Optical Telescope

    Roming, Peter W. A., 2005, SSRv

    2,096 lifetime citations

  4. Methods and results of an automatic analysis of a complete sample of Swift-XRT observations of GRBs

    Evans, P. A., 2009, MNRAS

    1,844 lifetime citations

  5. The Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) on the SWIFT Midex Mission

    Barthelmy, Scott D., 2005, SSRv

    1,764 lifetime citations

  6. Physical Processes Shaping Gamma-Ray Burst X-Ray Afterglow Light Curves: Theoretical Implications from the Swift X-Ray Telescope Observations

    Zhang, Bing, 2006, ApJ

    1,153 lifetime citations

  7. Gamma-ray bursts

    Mészáros, P., 2006, RPPh

    1,131 lifetime citations

  8. The Spectral Energy Distribution of Fermi Bright Blazars

    Abdo, A. A., 2010, ApJ

    1,034 lifetime citations

  9. Evidence for a Canonical Gamma-Ray Burst Afterglow Light Curve in the Swift XRT Data

    Nousek, J. A., 2006, ApJ

    949 lifetime citations

  10. Photometric calibration of the Swift ultraviolet/optical telescope

    Poole, T. S., 2008, MNRAS

    945 lifetime citations

  11. An online repository of Swift/XRT light curves of γ-ray bursts

    Evans, P. A., 2007, A&A

    940 lifetime citations

  12. The synthesis of the cosmic X-ray background in the Chandra and XMM-Newton era

    Gilli, R., 2007, A&A

    869 lifetime citations

  13. Calibration of X-ray absorption in our Galaxy

    Willingale, R., 2013, MNRAS

    810 lifetime citations

  14. Compact Object Modeling with the StarTrack Population Synthesis Code

    Belczynski, Krzysztof, 2008, ApJS

    790 lifetime citations

  15. Toward the Standard Population Synthesis Model of the X-Ray Background: Evolution of X-Ray Luminosity and Absorption Functions of Active Galactic Nuclei Including Compton-thick Populations

    Ueda, Yoshihiro, 2014, ApJ

    688 lifetime citations

  16. BAT AGN Spectroscopic Survey. V. X-Ray Properties of the Swift/BAT 70-month AGN Catalog

    Ricci, C., 2017, ApJS

    656 lifetime citations

  17. The 70 Month Swift-BAT All-sky Hard X-Ray Survey

    Baumgartner, W. H., 2013, ApJS

    598 lifetime citations

  18. General physical properties of bright Fermi blazars

    Ghisellini, G., 2010, MNRAS

    589 lifetime citations

  19. Relativistic jet activity from the tidal disruption of a star by a massive black hole

    Burrows, D. N., 2011, Natur

    585 lifetime citations

  20. Swift and NuSTAR observations of GW170817: Detection of a blue kilonova

    Evans, P. A., 2017, Sci

    560 lifetime citations

How we found these papers

We searched NASA’s Science Explorer (SciX) for peer-reviewed articles naming Swift in the title, abstract or keywords; standard filters drop articles that are not peer-reviewed and magazine pieces.

((=abs:"Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory" OR =abs:"Swift satellite" OR =abs:"Swift observatory" OR =abs:"Swift mission" OR =abs:"Swift spacecraft" OR =abs:"Swift telescope" OR =abs:"Swift observations" OR =abs:"Swift observation" OR =abs:"Swift data" OR =abs:"Swift monitoring" OR (abs:Swift AND (abs:GRB OR =abs:"gamma-ray burst" OR =abs:"gamma-ray bursts" OR abs:BAT OR abs:XRT OR abs:UVOT OR =abs:"X-ray" OR =abs:"X-rays" OR =abs:ultraviolet OR =abs:UV OR =abs:"gamma-ray" OR =abs:"gamma-rays" OR =abs:afterglow OR =abs:afterglows) AND NOT (=abs:"swift heavy ion" OR =abs:"swift heavy ions" OR =abs:"swift ions")) OR =abs:"Burst Alert Telescope" OR (abs:UVOT AND (=abs:ultraviolet OR =abs:UV OR =abs:optical OR =abs:photometry)) OR (abs:BAT AND (=abs:"hard X-ray" OR =abs:"hard X-rays" OR abs:AGN OR abs:GRB OR =abs:"gamma-ray burst" OR =abs:"gamma-ray bursts" OR =abs:"X-ray" OR =abs:"X-rays")) OR (abs:XRT AND (abs:UVOT OR abs:BAT)) OR facility:Swift) AND collection:astronomy) AND property:refereed AND doctype:article AND pubdate:[2005-05 TO 2040-01] AND NOT bibstem:("A&R" OR "ACPD" OR "AIASJ" OR "AMTD" OR "AeAm" OR "AirSp" OR "AsNow" OR "AsUAI" OR "AvWST" OR "BGD" OR "C&E" OR "C&T" OR "CAPJ" OR "CliPD" OR "E&S" OR "ENews" OR "ESDD" OR "ESSDD" OR "ESuDD" OR "GID" OR "GMDD" OR "GeCAS" OR "HESSD" OR "IrAJ" OR "JCos" OR "JRASC" OR "LAstr" OR "MNSSA" OR "Met" OR "NHESD" OR "NPGD" OR "NewSc" OR "OcScD" OR "Orion" OR "PhT" OR "PhTea" OR "PhuZ" OR "PhyOJ" OR "PhyW" OR "PlR" OR "SOILD" OR "SciAm" OR "SpFl" OR "TCD" OR "ZemVs")

Open in SciX

Added after review (1)

  1. Swift X-Ray Telescope and Very Large Telescope Observations of the Afterglow of GRB 041223 Mission's first published science result: the first gamma-ray burst afterglow detected by Swift's X-ray telescope (GRB 041223). Decision 🤖

Removed after review (4)

  1. Heavy ion irradiation of crystalline water ice. Cosmic ray amorphisation cross-section and sputtering yield Laboratory study using fast ("swift") ion beams; unrelated to the Swift observatory. Decision 🤖
  2. On the possible luminescence nature of unidentified cometary emissions Names comet Swift-Tuttle; unrelated to the Swift observatory. Decision 🤖
  3. UFFO/ Lomonosov: The Payload for the Observation of Early Photons from Gamma Ray Bursts Describes the UFFO payload on the Lomonosov satellite; not a Swift paper. Decision 🤖
  4. The Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) High-energy X-Ray Mission Mission description of NuSTAR; mentions Swift only as a partner for coordinated observations. Decision 🤖