Record-breaking gamma-ray burst leaves astrophysicists in awe

On October 9, an incredibly strong influx of X-rays and gamma rays infiltrated our solar system. It was likely the result of a massive explosion that occurred 2.4 billion light-years from Earth – and it left the scientific community stunned.

After the blast, astrophysicists around the world turned their telescopes on the spectacular show and watched it from various cosmic vantage points. And over the following week, as they carefully examined the event’s shimmering afterglow, they were shocked at how extremely bright this gamma-ray burst appeared to have been.

Eventually, the sheer intensity of the spectacle earned it an apt (very millennial) name to accompany its robot title GRB221009A: BOAT – the “brightest of times”.

“This GRB is an extraordinarily rare event,” said Jillian Rastinejad, an astronomer at Northwestern University, in a statement. “It was so bright that it triggered the Swift gamma-ray telescopes twice, completely saturating the detectors — something I haven’t seen in my time observing GRBs.”

So what could be at the root of this record-breaking outbreak? Well, scientists reasoned, maybe something just as staggeringly extreme.

Currently, the leading hypothesis is that this GRB was created by the death of an old star as it turned into one monstrous black hole.

The idea here is that a giant supernova in the distant universe might have spurred the birth of a black hole, and since black holes are known to spew out superlative jets of particles traveling at near the speed of light, that jet might spit its contents toward Earth.

Perhaps October 9th was the day we received evidence of the burgeoning abyss.

A unique opportunity

“We believe this is a unique opportunity to answer some of the most fundamental questions about these explosions, from black hole formation to testing dark matter models,” said Brendan O’Connor, an astrophysicist at the University of Maryland, who initially helped monitor the GRB, said in a statement.

And if the eruption is really related to the creation of an abyss, as scientists envision, it could give us valuable insights into how matter behaves when it’s moving at near the speed of light, how stars collapse into unimaginably dense cavities, and in one broader sense of what conditions might be like in a galaxy other than our own – the distant realm where BOAT was born.

However, it is worth noting that all those involved in researching this GRB are very cautious before making a definitive statement as to the cause. Teams are still watching the event’s “afterglow” to determine if the dead star; The black hole theory is established.

“Given that most other long GRBs result from the collapse of a massive star, we have every reason to believe that we will find direct evidence of a supernova,” Rastinejad said. “But that will take more work and time to confirm, and the universe could always surprise us.”

GRBs can also be associated with other cosmic wonders. For example, shorter ones, lasting only fractions of a second, tend to come from neutron star collisions — the impact of stellar bodies so dense that a tablespoon is about the weight of Mount Everest.

However, because this GRB is so bright and in its infancy, scientists expect to be able to monitor it for several months. After a month, Rastinejad expects the evidence of the event to disappear behind the sun, but once it comes out again early next year, he says: “We will be excited to see the GRB as a messy ‘toddler’. Then we’ll be ready and waiting to capture it on camera.”

All eyes are on BOOT

“The record-breaking nature of this GRB has greatly reinvigorated the larger observation community,” Rasinejad said. “Everyone – even those who don’t normally deal with GRBs – have tried to point their detectors at it. It’s a beautiful and surreal thing to be a part of and watch this story unfold.”

On the one hand, NASA instruments on the International Space Station like that NICER X-ray telescope and a Japanese detector called the Orbiting High-Energy Monitor Alert Network are involved. Then you have two independent teams, one led by Rastinejad and the other led by O’Connor, using the ground-based Gemini South telescope in Chile. And that only scratches the surface of those staring at the electrifying outburst.

All eyes are on BOOT, even if this ultra-bright GRB turns out to be the product of a star collapse, there is still much more to learn. We would have the “how,” but some researchers are particularly interested in understanding it why The collapse would have triggered an event with that energy level.

Although explosive GRB flares are caught a few times a week, Wen-fai Fong, an astrophysicist at Northwestern University, points out that “as long as we’ve been able to spot GRBs, there’s no question this GRB is the brightest we’ve ever had by a factor of 10 or more.”

It’s also odd that such high-energy rays could even survive a 2.4-billion-year journey to our planet. As the National Science Foundation’s NOIRLab puts it, scientists are wondering how the particles emitted by the blast could “contradict our standard understanding of physics.”

Getting to the bottom of all this, it’s promising that scientists believe this eruption is much closer to Earth than your average GRB. This means that we can extract many details from it that would otherwise be too faint to see.

And while that closeness might also partially explain why it appears so bright to us, “it’s also among the most energetic and brightest bursts ever seen, regardless of distance, which makes it doubly exciting,” Roberta Pillera, the astrophysicist at the Polytechnic University of Bari, Italy, which led the initial communications on the outbreak, said in a statement.

As NASA simply summarized, “Another GRB this bright may not appear for decades.”