On October 9, an incredibly powerful influx of X-rays and gamma rays infiltrated our solar system. It was likely the result of a massive explosion that happened 2.4 billion light-years from Earth – and it left the scientific community stunned.
Following the explosion, astrophysicists around the world turned their telescopes to the spectacular spectacle, watching it unfold from a variety of cosmic vantage points. And as they vigilantly studied the shimmering afterglow of the event over the next week, they were shocked by the sheer luminosity of this gamma-ray burst.
Eventually, the sheer intensity of the show earned it an apt (very millennial) name to go along with its robotic title of GRB221009A: BOAT – “Brilliant Ever”.
“This GRB is an extraordinarily rare event,” Jillian Rastinejad, an astronomer at Northwestern University, said in a statement. “It was so bright that it triggered the Swift gamma-ray telescopes twice and completely saturated the detectors – something I haven’t seen since observing GRBs.”
So what could be the root of this record breaking eruption? Well, the scientists reasoned, maybe something extremely mind-blowing.
As of now, the main hypothesis is that this GRB was generated by the death of an old star as it transformed into a monstrous black hole.
Highlighted is a dot of light indicating where GRB221009A is coming from.
Gemini/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/B International Observatory. O’Connor/J. Rastinejad/W. Fong/TA Rector/J. Miller/M. Zamani/D. by Martin
The idea here is that a huge supernova in the distant universe may have spurred the birth of a black hole, and as black holes are known to spew out jets of supreme particles traveling at nearly the speed of light , perhaps the jet of it spits its contents towards Earth.
Perhaps October 9 was the day we received evidence of the dawning abyss.
An artist’s illustration of what the jet might look like 2.4 billion light years away if we could stand right in front of it.
NASA/Swift/Cruz de Wilde
A โonce in a centuryโ opportunity
“We believe this is a unique opportunity to address some of the most fundamental questions about these explosions, from the formation of black holes to testing models of dark matter,” said astrophysicist Brendan O’Connor. at University. of Maryland who initially helped observe the GRB, said in a statement.
Moreover, if the burst is really related to the genesis of an abyss as scientists imagine, it could give us valuable information about how matter behaves when traveling near the speed of light. , how stars collapse into incredibly dense voids, and in a larger sense. , what conditions might be like in a galaxy other than our own – the distant realm where BOAT was born.
Swift’s X-ray telescope captured the afterglow of GRB 221009A about an hour after it was first detected. The bright rings form as a result of X-rays scattered from otherwise unobservable layers of dust in our galaxy that lie in the direction of the burst.
NASA/Swift/A. Beardmore (University of Leicester)
However, it is worth mentioning that everyone involved in researching this GRB is very careful before making a final cause statement. Teams are still observing the “afterglow” of the event to determine if the dead star; the black hole theory is solid.
“Since most other long GRBs result from the collapse of a massive star, we have every reason to believe that we will find direct evidence of a supernova,” Rastinejad said. “But it will take more work and time to confirm, and the universe may still surprise us.”
GRBs can also be associated with other cosmic wonders. For example, the shortest ones, lasting only fractions of a second, tend to come from neutron star collisions – the crashing of stellar bodies so dense that a tablespoon of one equals something like the weight of Mount Everest.
On the bright side, however, because this GRB is so bright and in its infancy, scientists expect to be able to monitor it for several months. After a month, Rastinejad expects evidence of the event to disappear behind the sun, but once it returns early next year, says ‘we’ll be happy to see the GRB as a ‘toddler’ “messy”. Then we’ll be ready and waiting to capture it on camera.”
All eyes are on the BOAT
“The record-breaking nature of this GRB has greatly invigorated the wider observing community,” Rasinejad said. “Everyone – even those who don’t usually study GRBs – have tried to point their detectors at it. It’s a beautiful and surreal thing to be a part of and watch how this story unfolds.”
On the one hand, NASA instruments on the International Space Station such as the NICER X-ray telescope and a Japanese detector called Orbiting High-energy Monitor Alert Network are involved. Then you have two independent teams, one led by Rastinejad and the other by O’Connor, using the Gemini South Ground Telescope in Chile. And that only scratches the surface of who is looking at the electrifying brilliance.
Isn’t it just crazy?
A massive gamma-ray burst recently occurred in space and it was so strong that it ionized the upper parts of Earth’s atmosphere, changing the way radio waves travel through it. Detectors in India, Germany and the UK have observed this change ๐#GRB221009 pic.twitter.com/ypZwRxw7cO
โ Rami Mandow ๐ณ๏ธโ๐ (@CosmicRami) October 15, 2022
With all eyes on BOAT, even if this ultra-bright GRB turns out to be the product of a collapsing star, there would still be a lot to learn. We would have the “how”, but some researchers are particularly interested in understanding Why the collapse would have triggered an event with that energy level.
Although explosive GRB flares are captured a few times a week, Wen-fai Fong, an astrophysicist at Northwestern University, points out that “as long as we have been able to detect GRBs, there is no doubt that this GRB is the brightest that we have”. never seen by a factor of 10 or more.”
It’s also curious that such high-energy rays could survive a 2.4 billion year journey to our planet in the first place. As the National Science Foundation’s NOIRLab puts it, scientists wonder how the particles emitted from the burst might “challenge our standard understanding of physics.”
To get to the bottom of it all, it’s promising that scientists think this burst is much closer to Earth than your average GRB. This means we can glean a lot of detail from it that otherwise might be too faint to see.
And while such close proximity may also partly explain why it appears so luminescent to us, “it’s also one of the most energetic and luminous bursts ever seen at any distance, which makes it doubly exciting,” Roberta Pillera, astrophysicist at the Polytechnic University of Bari. , Italy, which led the first communications on the breakout, said in a statement.
As NASA simply summed it up, “another such bright GRB may not appear for decades.”
#Record #gammaray #burst #leaves #astrophysicists #awe