Space: The most powerful burst of light scientists have ever seen has been observed

Astronomers saw in the sky the most powerful flash of light they have ever observed. It was a gamma-ray burst, which is also the closest ever detected, at a distance of 2.4 billion light-years from Earth, in the direction of the constellation Sagittarius. Such a powerful flash of light can last decades or even centuries for to appear again, according to scientists.

The observation was made on October 14 by the ground-based Gemini South International Telescope in Chile, which is run by the US NOIRLab astronomy center, and was preceded by initial observations by X-ray and gamma-ray space telescopes on October 9. The record-breaking light burst named GRB221009A probably came from the explosion of a giant supernova that gave birth to a black hole.

When black holes form they create powerful “jets” of particles that are accelerated to almost the speed of light. These jets then tear through the remnants of the now-destroyed star, causing the emission of powerful X-rays and gamma rays that sweep through the universe. Such events, in a few seconds, release as much energy as the Sun will produce in its entire life of 10 billion years.

If their direction “points” towards Earth, then they can be seen as very bright flashes which have been called GRBs (Gamma-Ray Bursts). The first such electromagnetic bursts were accidentally discovered by US military satellites in the 1960s.

The new titanic cosmic explosion has mobilized astronomers in different parts of the world, as they rushed to study the “meteorites” of the phenomenon. Indicatively, a Chinese telescope recorded photons with an impressive energy of 18 tera-electronvolts (TeV), when by comparison CERN’s large accelerator produces particles with an energy of up to 13 TeV. No GRB with an energy above 10 TeV has ever been observed to date.

“The unusually long-lived GRB221009A is the brightest GRB ever recorded, and the afterglow breaks all records at all wavelengths. “Because it’s so bright and also so close, we think this is the ‘opportunity of the century’ to answer the most fundamental questions about these explosions,” said Brendan O’Connor of the University of Maryland.

The new record burst occurred 20 times closer to our planet than the average GRB burst to date, yet it was at a safe distance. But if such an explosion were to occur much closer to our planet, a few thousand light-years away, it could be catastrophic, possibly causing a mass extinction of species (and humans). Some scientists, according to NASA, think it’s possible that at least one of Earth’s mass extinctions, the Ordovician about 450 million years ago, was caused by such a relatively nearby electromagnetic burst.

GRBs occur in two different forms. One, the rarest, is of short duration (up to two seconds), constitutes about 30% of all related phenomena that have been observed, and is estimated to be caused by collisions of neutron stars (pulsars). The second type of GRB is longer lasting (several minutes) and is probably caused by cataclysmic supernova explosions, which are 100 times brighter than a supernova and originate from the death of massive stars. As happened in the last record case, astronomers can see the “twilight” after such an explosion.

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