Scientists Record GRB 221009A, the Brightest Gamma-Ray Burst in Cosmic History

 

International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/B. O’Connor (UMD/GWU) & J. Rastinejad & W Fong (Northwestern Univ)
A team of scientists from 17 countries, including physicists from HSE University, analysed early photometric and spectroscopic data of GRB 221009A, the brightest gamma-ray burst ever recorded. The data was obtained at the Sayan Observatory one hour and 15 minutes after the emission was registered.

The researchers Scientists Record  detected photons

 

with an energy of 18 teraelectronvolts (TeV). Theoretically, such high-energy particles should not reach Earth, but data analysis has confirmed that they can. The results  jamaica phone number library challenge the theory of gamma radiation  absorption and may point to unknown physical processes. The study has been published in Astronomy & Astrophysics.

Gamma-ray bursts are the most powerful cosmic explosions, releasing an immense amount of energy. These bursts were first detected in the  of voice of our customers epitomizes gamma range, giving them their name. They occur during the death of massive stars or the collision of neutron stars.

On October 9, 2022, several

 

space-based gamma-ray observatories detected an exceptionally bright burst, later classified as GRB 221009A—the most powerful gamma-ray burst ever recorded. The burst’s  clean email unprecedented brightness was so intense that it caused malfunctions in the gamma-ray telescopes of most orbital observatories, including Fermi, INTEGRAL, and Konus-Wind. In addition, the gamma radiation that reached Earth caused a significant disturbance in the ionosphere.

The X-ray emission from GRB 221009A could be observed for several weeks as dust in our Galaxy scattered the light back toward Earth. This led to the formation of unusual expanding rings, which were captured by the Neil Gehrels Swift X-ray Telescope (NASA). Over the course of 12 days, the scientists took photographs and later combined them into a video clip, presented here as rings in conventional colours.

The radiation energy emitted by GRB 221009A over just one hundred seconds was equivalent to the combined radiation of one billion Suns over 97 billion years, even though the age of the Universe is only 13.8 billion years. Such events occur extremely rarely—once in a thousand years. However, it wasn’t just the brightness that made GRB 221009A unique. The burst occurred 2.4 billion light-years from Earth, which is relatively close by the standards of the Universe.

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