Astronomers with The LHAASO Collaboration have discovered that final 12 months’s GRB 221009A gamma-ray burst, subsequently nicknamed the Brightest of All Time (BOAT), carried with it 13 teraelectronvolts of power. Of their examine, reported within the journal Science Advances, the group analyzed knowledge from the LHAASO-KM2A detector positioned in in Sichuan, China, to be taught extra concerning the burst.
Gamma ray bursts consequence within the brightest explosions seen from Earth and there are a lot of theories relating to their supply. Some counsel they’re brought on by neutron star collisions; others counsel they’re as a result of mergers between neutron stars and black holes or the collapse of a large star right into a black hole.
In any case, theories relating to their brightness heart on their afterglow radiation. Quickly shifting materials collides, producing shock waves that velocity up electrons, which additional collide, leading to high-energy gamma rays. The outcomes are the brightest explosions detected.
Prior analysis has prompt that previous to GRB 221009A, energy levels from gamma ray bursts have been within the neighborhood of half a teraelectronvolt or much less. Thus, when GRB 221009A was detected on October 9, 2022, by the Gemini South telescope in Chile, the star gazing group took discover. The burst was discovered shortly thereafter to have occurred roughly 2.4 billion light years from Earth, and lasted 70 occasions so long as every other recorded gamma-ray burst. Researchers all over the world have described it as a 1 in 10,000-year occasion.
Over the previous 12 months, the crew with The LHAASO Collaboration has been learning the BOAT. They’ve to date discovered that the star concerned in its creation was roughly 20 occasions bigger than the sun—and it had a burst that lasted for a number of hundred seconds. They’ve additionally discovered that greater than 140 of the gamma rays within the burst had energies over 3 teraelectronvolts.
They’ve additionally discovered proof that the afterglow of the burst lasted longer than could be defined by theories describing how gamma ray bursts are alleged to behave. The crew plans to proceed examine of the BOAT, hoping to be taught extra concerning the causes of gamma ray bursts and the way they behave afterward.
Extra info:
Very high-energy gamma-ray emission past 10 TeV from GRB 221009A, Science Advances (2023). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adj2778
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Gamma-rays with energies of as much as 13 teraelectronvolts measured for brightest burst of all time (2023, November 16)
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