What causes the mysterious gamma-ray bursts [ http://www.sciam.co…0398fishman.html ]? Indicated in this [ http://www.astro.ca…grb011211/ ] Hubble Space Telescope exposure of an otherwise unremarkable field in the constellation Crater [ http://www.astronom…crt.html ], is the dwindling optical afterglow of a gamma-ray burst first detected [ http://gcn.gsfc.nas…] by the Beppo-SAX satellite on 2001 December 11. The burst's host galaxy [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…], billions of light-years distant, is the faint smudge extending above and to the left of the afterglow position. After rapidly catching the fading [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] x-ray light [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] from the burst with the orbiting XMM-Newton observatory [ http://sci.esa.int/…], astronomers are now reporting [ http://www.star.le.…] the telltale signatures [ http://imagine.gsfc…snr_group/spectrosco py.html ] of elements [ http://www.uky.edu/…] magnesium, silicon, sulphur, argon, and calcium - material most likely found in an expanding debris [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] cloud produced by the explosion of a massive star. The exciting result [ http://www.pparc.ac…] is evidence that the gamma-ray burst itself is linked to a very energetic supernova explosion [ http://xxx.lanl.gov…] which may have preceded the powerful [ http://www.pbs.org/…milkyway.html ] flash of gamma-rays by up to a few days.
Explanation
What causes the mysterious gamma-ray bursts [ http://www.sciam.co…0398fishman.html ]? Indicated in this [ http://www.astro.ca…grb011211/ ] Hubble Space Telescope exposure of an otherwise unremarkable field in the constellation Crater [ http://www.astronom…crt.html ], is the dwindling optical afterglow of a gamma-ray burst first detected [ http://gcn.gsfc.nas…] by the Beppo-SAX satellite on 2001 December 11. The burst's host galaxy [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…], billions of light-years distant, is the faint smudge extending above and to the left of the afterglow position. After rapidly catching the fading [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] x-ray light [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] from the burst with the orbiting XMM-Newton observatory [ http://sci.esa.int/…], astronomers are now reporting [ http://www.star.le.…] the telltale signatures [ http://imagine.gsfc…snr_group/spectrosco py.html ] of elements [ http://www.uky.edu/…] magnesium, silicon, sulphur, argon, and calcium - material most likely found in an expanding debris [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] cloud produced by the explosion of a massive star. The exciting result [ http://www.pparc.ac…] is evidence that the gamma-ray burst itself is linked to a very energetic supernova explosion [ http://xxx.lanl.gov…] which may have preceded the powerful [ http://www.pbs.org/…milkyway.html ] flash of gamma-rays by up to a few days.
Explanation
Credit and Copyright:
HST Image: D.W. Fox, J.S. Bloom, S.R. Kulkarni (Caltech [ http://www.astro.ca…]), et al. XMM Result: J.N. Reeves, D. Watson, J.P. Osborne (University of Leicester [ http://www.star.le.…]), et al.
Credit_and_Copyright
HST Image: D.W. Fox, J.S. Bloom, S.R. Kulkarni (Caltech [ http://www.astro.ca…]), et al. XMM Result: J.N. Reeves, D. Watson, J.P. Osborne (University of Leicester [ http://www.star.le.…]), et al.
