Although the link between long gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) and supernovae has been established, hitherto there have been no observations of the beginning of a supernova explosion and its intimate link to a GRB. In particular, we do not know how the jet that defines a gamma-ray burst emerges from the star's surface, nor how a GRB progenitor explodes. Here we report observations of the relatively nearby GRB 060218 (ref. 5) and its connection to supernova SN 2006aj (ref. 6). In addition to the classical non-thermal emission, GRB 060218 shows a thermal component in its X-ray spectrum, which cools and shifts into the optical/ultraviolet band as time passes. We interpret these features as arising from the break-out of a shock wave driven by a mildly relativistic shell into the dense wind surrounding the progenitor. We have caught a supernova in the act of exploding, directly observing the shock break-out, which indicates that the GRB progenitor was a Wolf-Rayet star.

Since the discovery of the first broad iron-K line in 1995 from the Seyfert Galaxy MCG-6-30-15 1 , broad iron-K lines have been found in several other Seyfert galaxies 2 , from accreting stellar mass black holes 3 and even from accreting neutron stars 4 . The iron-K line is prominent in the reflection spectrum 5,6 created by the hard X-ray continuum irradiating dense accreting matter. Relativistic distortion 7 of the line makes it sensitive to the strong gravity and spin of the black hole 8 . The accompanying iron-L line emission should be detectable when the iron abundance is high. Here we report the first discovery of both iron-K and L emission, using XMM-Newton observations of the Narrow-1

We present the photometric calibration of the Swift Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope (UVOT) which includes: optimum photometric and background apertures, effective area curves, colour transformations, conversion factors for count rates to flux and the photometric zero-points (which are accurate to better than 4 per cent) for each of the seven UVOT broad-band filters. The calibration was performed with observations of standard stars and standard star fields that represent a wide range of spectral star types. The calibration results include the position-dependent uniformity, and instrument response over the 1600-8000 Å operational range. Because the UVOT is a photon-counting instrument, we also discuss the effect of coincidence loss on the calibration results. We provide practical guidelines for using the calibration in UVOT data analysis. The results presented here supersede previous calibration results.

Abstract.We collate the results of recent high resolution X-ray spectroscopic observations of 23 AGN, and use the resulting information to try to provide answers to some of the main open questions about warm absorbers: where do they originate, what effect do they have on their host galaxies, and what is their importance within the energetics and dynamics of the AGN system as a whole? We find that the warm absorbers of nearby Seyferts and certain QSOs are most likely to originate in outflows from the dusty torus, and that the kinetic luminosity of these outflows accounts for well under 1% of the bolometric luminosities of the AGN. Our analysis supports, however, the view that the relativistic outflows recently observed in two PG quasars have their origin in accretion disc winds, although the energetic importance of these outflows is similar to that of the Seyfert warm absorbers. We find that the observed soft X-ray absorbing ionisation phases fill less than 10% of the available volume. Finally, we show that the amount of matter processed through an AGN outflow system, over the lifetime of the AGN, is probably large enough to have a significant influence on the evolution of the host galaxy and of the AGN itself.

Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs) are bright, brief flashes of high energy photons that have fascinated scientists for 30 years. They come in two classes 1 : long (>2 s), softspectrum bursts and short, hard events. The major progress to date on understanding GRBs has been for long bursts which are typically at high redshift (z ~ 1) and are in sub-luminous star-forming host galaxies. They are likely produced in core-collapse explosions of massive stars 2 . Until the present observation, no short GRB had been accurately (<10") and rapidly (minutes) located. Here we report the detection of X-ray afterglow from and the localization

We present the analysis of XMM-Newton and Swift optical-UV and X-ray observations of the Seyfert-1/QSO Mrk 509, part of an unprecedented multi-wavelength campaign, investigating the nuclear environment of this AGN. The XMM-Newton data are from a series of 10 observations of about 60 ks each, spaced from each other by about 4 days, taken in Oct.-Nov. 2009. During our campaign, Mrk 509 was also observed with Swift for a period of about 100 days, monitoring the behaviour of the source before and after the XMM-Newton observations. With these data we have established the continuum spectrum in the optical-UV and X-ray bands and investigated its variability on the timescale of our campaign with a resolution time of a few days. In order to measure and model the continuum as far as possible into the UV, we also made use of Hubble Space Telescope (HST) cosmic origin spectrograph (COS) observations of Mrk 509 (part of our coordinated campaign) and of an archival Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE) observation. We have found that in addition to an X-ray power-law, the spectrum displays soft X-ray excess emission below 2 keV, which interestingly varies in association with the thermal optical-UV emission from the accretion disc. The change in the X-ray power-law component flux (albeit smaller than that of the soft excess), on the other hand, is uncorrelated to the flux variability of the soft X-ray excess and the disc component on the probed timescale. The results of our simultaneous broad-band spectral and timing analysis suggest that, on a resolution time of a few days, the soft X-ray excess of Mrk 509 is produced by the Comptonisation of the thermal optical-UV photons from the accretion disc by a warm (0.2 keV) optically thick (τ ∼ 17) corona surrounding the inner regions of the disc. This makes Mrk 509, with a black hole mass of about 1-3 × 10 8 M , the highest mass known system to display such behaviour and origin for the soft X-ray excess.

A long 280 ks observation of the Seyfert 1 galaxy NGC 3783 with XMM-Newton is reported. We focus on the oxygen line complex between 17 and 24 Å as measured with the Reflection Grating Spectrometer. Accurate absorption column densities and emission-line fluxes are obtained. We explore several options for the geometry and physical form of the emitting and absorbing gas. The lack of change in ionization in the absorber despite an increase in continuum flux during the observation restricts the high-ionization (O-K) and the low-ionization (Fe-M) gas to distances of at least 0.5 and 2.8 pc, respectively, away from the central source. Given the P Cygni type profiles in the resonance spectral lines and the similar velocity widths, column densities, and ionization structure inferred separately from the emission and absorption lines, it is tempting to relate the X-ray narrow-line emitting plasma with the X-ray-absorbing gas. Under this assumption, the scenario of dense clumped clouds can be ruled out. Conversely, extended ionization cones (re10 pc) are consistent with the observation independent of this assumption. These findings are in stark contrast to the picture of numerous clumpy (n e e10 9 cm À3 ) clouds drawn recently from UV spectra, but they are consistent with the extended X-ray emission cones observed directly in Seyfert 2 galaxies.

In 2006 March the soft gamma-ray repeater SGR 1900+14 resumed its bursting activity after $2 yr of quiescence. The Swift mission observed the source several times. We report on the intense burst ''forest'' recorded on March 29, which lasted for $30 s, when Swift was pointing at the source with the narrow field of view instruments. More than 40 bursts were detected by BAT and XRT, 7 of which were rare intermediate flares (IFs). The BAT data were used to carry out time-resolved spectroscopy in the 14Y100 keV range down to 8 ms timescales. BAT and XRT simultaneous data were used to characterize the broadband energy spectra of IFs and verify the results obtained from the BAT-only spectral fits. This unique data set allowed us to test the magnetar model predictions, such as the magnetically trapped fireball and twisted magnetosphere, over an unprecedented range of fluxes and with large statistics. We confirmed that a two-blackbody component adequately fits the time-resolved and integrated spectra of IFs. However, Comptonization models give comparably good reduced 2 . Moreover, we found a change of behavior, around $10 41 erg s À1 , above which the softer blackbody shows a sort of saturation, while the harder one still grows to a few times 10 41 erg s À1 , and a rather sharp correlation between temperature and radii of the blackbodies (R 2 / kT À3 ), which holds for the most luminous parts of the flares ($L tot ! 10 41 erg s À1 ). Within the magnetar model, the majority of these findings are accounted for in terms of thermalized emission from the E-mode and O-mode photospheres. Interestingly, the maximum observed luminosity coming from a region of $15 km matches the magnetic Eddington luminosity at the same radius, for a surface dipole field of $8 ; 10 14 G (virtually equal to that deduced from the spin-down of SGR 1900+14).