A tremendous pulse of gamma-ray radiation that swept through our solar system on October 9, 2022, overwhelmed the gamma-ray detectors on multiple orbiting satellites and sent astronomers on the run to investigate the event using the most potent telescopes in the world.
The newly discovered source, designated GRB 221009A in honor of the time it was found, ended up becoming the brightest gamma-ray burst (GRB) ever observed.The gamma-ray burst, which lasted for more than 300 seconds, is thought to be the first sign of the birth of a black hole, which is created when the center of a large, rapidly spinning star shatters under the weight of itself.At nearly light speed, powerful plasma jets are ejected from the growing black hole, penetrating the falling star and emitting gamma rays.
Observations of GRB 221009A from radio waves to gamma rays, including crucial millimeter-wave observations with the Centre for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian’s Submillimeter Array (SMA) in Hawaii, shed new light on the decades-long quest to understand the origin of these extreme cosmic explosions, according to a new study that appears today in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.
What would happen after the initial burst of gamma rays was the mystery of GRB 221009A, the brightest explosion ever seen. The study’s principal author is Tanmoy Laskar, an assistant professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Utah. According to him, a dazzling “afterglow” of light spanning the entire spectrum is produced as the jets collide with the gas surrounding the dying star. We must be quick and nimble to capture the light before it vanishes and take its secrets because the afterglow fades because the afterglow fades pretty quickly, he added.
In an effort to employ the greatest radio and millimetre telescopes in the world to analyse the afterglow of GRB 221009A, astronomers Edo Berger and Yvette Cendes of the Centre for Astrophysics (CfA) immediately obtained data with the SMA.
Garrett Keating, a SMA project scientist and CfA researcher, states they were able to swiftly turn the SMA to the site of GRB 221009A due to its capacity to respond quickly. The crew was impressed by the brightness of the GRB’s afterglow, which we could observe for more than 10 days before it faded.
Astronomers were perplexed when they combined and analyzed data from the SMA and other telescopes around the world and discovered that the millimeter and radio wave measurements were significantly brighter compared to what the visible and X-ray radiation would suggest.
According to Cendes, CfA research associate, one explanation is that the potent jet created by GRB 221009A is more complicated than in other GRBs. It’s likely that one part of the jet produces visible light and X-rays while another part generates radio waves and early millimeter waves.
According to researchers, this afterglow is so intense that we will keep looking into its radio emission for months, if not years. With this much longer time span, they hope to solve the riddle of the early excess emission’s mysterious origin.
Unrelated to the specifics of this GRB, astronomers now have a crucial new skill: the capacity to react quickly to GRBs and other comparable phenomena with millimeter-wave telescopes.
According to Edo Berger, professor of astronomy at Harvard University and the CfA, the key lesson from this GRB is that without fast-acting radio and millimeter telescopes, such as the SMA, We would not be able to learn more about the most intense explosions in the cosmos. If we want to benefit from these gifts from the cosmos, we have to be as responsive as we can because we never know when such events will occur.
Read more on : https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2023/nasa-missions-study-what-may-be-a-1-in-10000-year-gamma-ray-burst/
