High Energy Transient Explorer - Achievements

Achievements

Among the achievements of the HETE-2 mission are:

  1. The discovery of GRB 030329, a widely observed, nearby gamma ray burst, firmly connecting GRBs with supernovas.
  2. The discovery of GRB 050709, which was the first short/hard GRB to be found with an optical counterpart, leading to a firm establishment of the cosmological origin of this subclass of GRBs.
  3. Dark bursts, or GRBs previously thought to have no optical counterparts, are not completely optically dark. Some of these dark GRBs fade in the optical very rapidly, others are dimmer but detectable with large (meter class) telescopes.
  4. The establishment of another subclass of GRBs, the less energetic X-Ray Flashes (XRF), and its first optical counterpart.
  5. The first to send out arcminute positions of GRBs to the observation community within tens of seconds of the onset of GRB (and in a few instances, while the burst was ongoing).

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