NASA has confirmed that on October 9, 2023, our solar system was hit by a gamma-ray burst originating 1,900 light years away. This was the brightest since the beginning of human civilization, what the space agency calls “once in 10,000 years.” The event that blinded the space satellite sensors.
Gamma-ray bursts are one of the strangest surprises that science encounters from time to time. To help enforce the 1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty, the United States launched a series of Vela satellites designed to detect nuclear explosions on the surface or in the atmosphere. A surprise came in 1967 when Vela 3 and Her 4 detected bursts of gamma rays that came from space, not from Earth.
Since then, gamma-ray bursts have received much scientific attention because they produce high-energy events that provide clues to the nature of the universe.
According to NASA, on Oct. 8, 2022, the first indication that a 1-in-10,000-year event is approaching our solar system will come when instruments on the Voyager 1 deep space probe detect a high-energy surge. It happened 20 billion miles away. The particles passed by as the brightest gamma-ray burst ever, wiping out internal systems after 30 hours, leaving him blinded as he exceeded the operating limits of many space-based sensors by 10 hours.
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Discoveries from NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, the Neil Gerrells Swift Observatory, and others suggest that the source of the burst, designated GRB 221009A, came from a spot in the constellation of Sagittarius 2.5 billion light-years away 1.9 billion years ago. have been identified. Not only was the burst 70 times brighter than he was before, but it spanned the 15th magnitude of the electromagnetic spectrum, from radio waves to gamma rays.
Unfortunately, the source of GRB 221009A has been pinpointed, but turned out to be on a line straight through the galactic centerline. That means it is shielded by tens of thousands of light years of gas and dust. This has prevented direct observation of the source, but the radio waves associated with the burst are penetrating and may remain visible as an afterglow for decades to come.
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
The most likely mechanism that caused the explosion was the birth of a black hole because the core of a supermassive star collapsed at the end of its life, resulting in a supernova and leaving behind a singularity that produced a pair of narrow particles. is. As it absorbs nearby matter, it erupts in the opposite direction at a speed close to the speed of light. Shock waves from these jets produce gamma rays.
The bursts originated from very close cosmically, providing a unique opportunity to learn more about the afterglow of such events. The dust cloud that the burst passes through deflects detectable X-rays. And the black hole mechanism.
The survey results are Astrophysics Journal Letter.
The video below shows how gamma ray bursts occur.
gamma rays
Source: NASA
