Amazing! The brightest flash of light is thought to have come from the birth of a black hole
JAKARTA, shift id- The brightest flash ever seen was witnessed by an event that occurred 2.4 billion light years from Earth. Astronomers believe the event was likely triggered by the formation of a black hole.
The gamma-ray burst was first detected by an orbiting telescope on October 9, and its emission is still observed by scientists around the world.
The gamma-ray burst lasted hundreds of seconds, and astrophysicist Brendan O’Connor told AFP that such an event is thought to have been caused by the death of a massive star, more than 30 times more massive than our Sun. .
The star explodes in a supernova, collapses into the black hole, then matter forms in the disk around the black hole, falls inward, and is ejected in a beam of energy that travels at 99.99% the speed of light.
The original source is from the Sagitta constellation and the flash of light travels for about 1.9 billion years to reach Earth. This is actually less than the current starting point distance as the universe is expanding. It’s like watching a 1.9 billion-year record of events unfolding before us.
The photons released by the explosion carried a record energy of 18 teraelectron volts (18 with 12 zeros behind them) and impacted long-wave radio communications in the Earth’s ionosphere.
“This is absolutely record-breaking, both in the number of photons and in the energy of the photons reaching us,” O’Connor said.
“Something so bright, so close, is truly a once-in-a-lifetime event,” he added.
Gamma ray research began in the 1960s and astronomers found them by accident. The US satellites tried to detect if the Soviet Union detonated a bomb in space, but in reality they ended up finding such an explosion coming from beyond the Milky Way.
“Gamma-ray bursts generally release the same amount of energy that our Sun produces over its lifetime in a matter of seconds, and these events are the brightest gamma-ray bursts,” O’Connor said.
This gamma-ray burst, known as GRB 221009A, was first seen by telescopes including NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray space telescope, Neil Gehrels’ Swift Observatory, and the Wind spacecraft on Sunday morning, Eastern time. (nda)
