The brightest rays appear far from Earth, suspected of a Black Death as large as 30 times the Sun.

KOMPA.com – Astronomers have found the brightest flash of light ever seen, from an event that occurred 2.4 billion light years from Earth and was probably triggered by the formation of a black hole.

This gamma-ray burst, the most intense form of electromagnetic radiation, was first detected by an orbiting telescope on October 9, 2022, and its emission is still observed by scientists around the world.

Astrophysicist Brendan O’Connor said so AFPgamma-ray bursts lasting hundreds of seconds such as Sunday’s (9/10/2022) are thought to be caused by the death of a massive star, which is 30 times larger than Sun we.

Read also: Knowing the sun Made in China, regularly sets new records

The star explodes in a supernova, dives into black, 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 flash released a photon carrying a record energy of 18 teraelectron volts – an 18 with 12 zeros behind it – 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 that reach us,” said O’Connor, who used the infrared instrument of the Gemini South telescope in Chile to make the new observations on Friday morning. local time.

“Something so bright, so close, is truly a once-in-a-lifetime event,” he added.

Read also:

Gamma-ray research began in the 1960s, when a US-designed satellite detected whether the Soviet Union had detonated a bomb in spaceeventually discovered such an explosion originated outside the Milky Way galaxy.

“A gamma-ray burst generally releases the same amount of energy that is produced Sun we all live within seconds and this event is the brightest gamma-ray burst, ”O’Connor said.

This gamma-ray burst, known as GRB 221009A, was first seen by telescopes including the Telescope Space NASA Gamma-ray stops, Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory and the Wind spacecraft on Sunday (10/9/2022) morning Eastern time.

Read also: Milky Way Map Revealed, Earth Towards a Black Hole?

Receive updates Featured News And latest news every day from Kompas.com. Let’s join the Telegram group “Kompas.com News Update”, how to click the link https://t.me/kompascomupdate, then join. You must first install the Telegram application on your mobile.