GROND mounted on the
MPG/ESO telescope (a dark blue cylinder at the lower left)
The Gamma-Ray Burst Optical/Near-Infrared Detector (GROND) is an imaging instrument used to investigate
Gamma-Ray Burst afterglows and for doing follow-up observations on
exoplanets using
transit photometry.[1][2][3] It is operated at the 2.2-metre
MPG/ESO telescope at ESO's
La Silla Observatory in the southern part of the Atacama desert, about 600 kilometres north of Santiago de Chile and at an altitude of 2,400 metres.
Discoveries
On 13 September 2008,
Swift detected gamma-ray burst
080913. GROND and
VLT subsequently placed the GRB at 12.8
Gly distant, making it the most-distant GRB observed, as well as the second-most-distant object to be
spectroscopically confirmed.[4][5]
On 15 September 2008,
NASA's
Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope detected gamma-ray burst
080916C. On 19 February 2009, NASA announced that the GROND team's work shows that the GRB was the most energetic yet observed, and 12.2 Gly distant.[6][7]
^"GROND Takes Off" (Press release). European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere (
ESO). 2007-07-06. Archived from
the original on 2009-02-25. Retrieved 2009-02-23.
GROND mounted on the
MPG/ESO telescope (a dark blue cylinder at the lower left)
The Gamma-Ray Burst Optical/Near-Infrared Detector (GROND) is an imaging instrument used to investigate
Gamma-Ray Burst afterglows and for doing follow-up observations on
exoplanets using
transit photometry.[1][2][3] It is operated at the 2.2-metre
MPG/ESO telescope at ESO's
La Silla Observatory in the southern part of the Atacama desert, about 600 kilometres north of Santiago de Chile and at an altitude of 2,400 metres.
Discoveries
On 13 September 2008,
Swift detected gamma-ray burst
080913. GROND and
VLT subsequently placed the GRB at 12.8
Gly distant, making it the most-distant GRB observed, as well as the second-most-distant object to be
spectroscopically confirmed.[4][5]
On 15 September 2008,
NASA's
Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope detected gamma-ray burst
080916C. On 19 February 2009, NASA announced that the GROND team's work shows that the GRB was the most energetic yet observed, and 12.2 Gly distant.[6][7]
^"GROND Takes Off" (Press release). European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere (
ESO). 2007-07-06. Archived from
the original on 2009-02-25. Retrieved 2009-02-23.