Another huge explosion has lit up the universe, and astronomers are studying it as best they can before the light fades away. Two weeks ago, the BATSE [ http://www.batse.ms…] instrument on the orbiting NASA Great Observatory Compton [ http://cossc.gsfc.n…] detected unusually bright flashes of gamma-rays [ http://cossc.gsfc.n…] from a point deep in the southern sky. This gamma-ray burst [ http://science.nasa…] was also recorded [ http://www.ias.rm.c…] by the orbiting Beppo-SAX satellite [ http://www.sdc.asi.…], which downlinked an accurate position followed by the world's largest optical telescopes. The subsequent fading optical transient, pictured above [ http://cfa-www.harv…], is so far out in the universe its light is measured to be redshifted [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] by factor of at least 1.6 [ http://gcn.gsfc.nas…]. The type of powerful explosion [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] that caused this gamma-ray burst [ http://www.sciam.co…] is not only still unknown, but found to be fading in an unusual way [ http://www.eso.org/…].
Explanation
Another huge explosion has lit up the universe, and astronomers are studying it as best they can before the light fades away. Two weeks ago, the BATSE [ http://www.batse.ms…] instrument on the orbiting NASA Great Observatory Compton [ http://cossc.gsfc.n…] detected unusually bright flashes of gamma-rays [ http://cossc.gsfc.n…] from a point deep in the southern sky. This gamma-ray burst [ http://science.nasa…] was also recorded [ http://www.ias.rm.c…] by the orbiting Beppo-SAX satellite [ http://www.sdc.asi.…], which downlinked an accurate position followed by the world's largest optical telescopes. The subsequent fading optical transient, pictured above [ http://cfa-www.harv…], is so far out in the universe its light is measured to be redshifted [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] by factor of at least 1.6 [ http://gcn.gsfc.nas…]. The type of powerful explosion [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] that caused this gamma-ray burst [ http://www.sciam.co…] is not only still unknown, but found to be fading in an unusual way [ http://www.eso.org/…].
