Game-Changing Gamma-Ray Burst
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Read the news release: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2022/nasa-missions-probe-game-changing-cosmic-explosion
Produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute’s Office of Public Outreach in collaboration with NASA’s Universe of Learning partners: Caltech/IPAC, Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, and NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Video imagery:
- Hubble Space Telescope image with location of GRB 211211A circled in red: NASA, ESA, Rastinejad et al. (2022), Troja et al. (2022), and Gladys Kober (Catholic Univ. of America)
- Illustration, two neutron stars beginning to merge: A. Simonnet (Sonoma State Univ.) and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
- Animation, merger of a black hole and a neutron star: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Writer: Leah Ramsay
Designer: Leah Hustak
Science review: Dr. Kelly Lepo
Education review: Jim Manning
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Photos of planets and galaxies scroll quickly.
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Text, News from the Universe.
December 20, 2022, GAME-CHANGING GAMMA-RAY BURST.
In a photo of space, a small area at the middle is circled in red. It is labeled site of gamma-ray burst.s
Text, Scientists are faced with new questions now that a powerful gamma-ray burst has defied typical characterization.
Gamma-ray bursts, the most powerful events in the universe, have been divided into two categories: long and short bursts.
The photo zooms in.
Text, Long bursts emit gamma rays for two seconds or more, when a massive star collapses in on itself, forming a black hole.
Short gamma ray bursts last for less than two seconds, and are caused by mergers of dense objects like neutron stars and black holes.
A photo of a ring of gold material with a blue and gold swirl on the inside. Light emits from the center.
Text, GRB 2 1 1 2 1 1 A was a burst lasting nearly a minute, but with features of shorter bursts: a merger event followed by a bright kilonova.
It's possible some long gamma-ray bursts produce kilonovas, but until now they were too far away to be detected.
Animation, a purple sphere and a blue oval with a block dot in the middle orbit each other in smaller and smaller circles until they collide. When they crash, light is emitted.
Text, Scientists are now rethinking their estimates of the universe's heavy elements, which kilonovas produce, and also how black holes are formed.
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The same animation with the sphere and oval repeats.
Text, This news was brought to you in part by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.