Largest Gamma Ray Burst Rocks Earth’s Upper Atmosphere

SPACE — Scientists have confirmed that the most powerful gamma ray burst after the Big Bang has hit Earth and caused significant disturbances around our planet. The extremely bright and long-lasting gamma ray burst was detected in October 20222.

Scientists call the burst BOAT or the brightest of all time. However, it was officially named GRB 221009A after it was discovered by a series of high-energy detection satellites around Earth.

“We have been measuring gamma ray bursts since the 1960s, and this is the strongest gamma ray burst ever measured,” said scientist at the Institute for Astrophysics, Pietro Ubertini. He is one of the authors of the research published in the journal Nature Communications on Tuesday, November 14, 2023 the.

BOAT is believed to have occurred due to the explosion of a massive star located more than 2 billion light years from Earth. The explosion created a supernova before falling into a black hole.

Also read: Scientists finally detail BOAT (GOAT), the largest gamma-ray explosion since the Big Bang

The radiation from the BOAT explosion hit our planet and had a severe impact on the Earth’s ionosphere. The upper layer of the atmosphere stretches about 50 – 1,000 kilometers above the earth’s surface and is rich in electrically charged particles.

Initially, the investigation into the impact of BOAT radiation was to reveal whether the mass extinction on Earth was caused by gamma rays.

How Bright is BOAT’s Gamma Ray Blast?

When scientists detected BOAT in October 2022, they found the burst was at least 10 times more powerful than the most energetic gamma-ray burst known. “Photons have been detected from gamma-ray bursts that have energies greater than those produced by the Large Hadron Collider (LHC),” said Jillian Rastinejad, a Northwestern University doctoral candidate. He was not involved in the new research, but was part of the team that first detected BOAT.

Rastinejad explained that the LHC could produce energy as high as 13 tera electron volts (TeV) or 13 trillion electron volts. However, BOAT produces photons with energies of at least 18 TeV.

Therefore, it is not surprising that during the 800 seconds BOAT’s gamma rays rained down on Earth, the Earth’s ionosphere was disrupted for several hours. The authors of the new study say that the China Seismo-Electromagnetic Satellite (CSES), which is in the ionosphere, should be able to detect these disturbances.

The weak detection led scientists to hypothesize that by the time a distant star’s gamma-ray burst reaches Earth, its power is no longer enough to shake the conductivity of the ionosphere. However, BOAT is different because its effect on the ionosphere is clearly visible in the form of strong electric field variations. The BOAT effect can also be measured in the atmosphere closer to the Earth’s surface, through radio signals bouncing between that surface and the ionosphere.

Also read: Scientists discover a baby star similar to the sun, spewing gamma rays

“Notably, this disturbance impacted the lowermost layers of Earth’s ionosphere, located just tens of kilometers above our planet’s surface, leaving a trail comparable to a large solar flare,” said Laura Hayes of the European Space Agency (ESA).