High-Speed BOAT
Video Player
Video Versions
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 of the BOAT (GRB 221009A): NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, A. Levan (Radboud University); Image Processing: Gladys Kober
- Produced animated video on the BOAT spectral feature: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
- Artist’s concept of a jet from a stellar core creating a gamma-ray burst: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab
Music from Music for Non-Profits
(DESCRIPTION)
Photos of planets, galaxies and nebulas scroll up the screen. Text: NEWS FROM THE UNIVERSE. August 15, 2024.
(SPEECH)
[COSMIC MUSIC]
(DESCRIPTION)
An extremely bright field of stars. One on the right has a vivid blue ring. Another smaller bright light in the center of the image is circled in red. Text: High Speed Boat.
Text: The brightest gamma-ray burst ever detected, nicknamed the BOAT, Brightest of All Time, was captured by NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope on October 9, 2022.
Astronomers think the BOAT occurred during the collapse of a massive star, forming a black hole and high-speed particle jet pointed towards Earth.
A line chart shows the energy and brightness of BOAT, along with a bar chart of the GBM saturation. Text: Continued study of BOAT data revealed a significant feature in the light spectrum, the first ever seen from a gamma-ray burst.
A bright pink line appears on the bar chart and the line chart. Text: The emission reached a peak energy of about 12 MeV,(million electron volts). For comparison, the energy of visible light ranges from 2 to 3 electron volts.
Jagged peaks in the pink line on the chart. Text: To reach such a high energy, the particles creating the gamma-rays had to be moving at 99.9% the speed of light. In our current understanding of the universe, nothing moves faster than light.
(SPEECH)
(DESCRIPTION)
Animation, two orange beams radiate out from a bright center. A bright purple beam radiates out from a silver sphere. Text: This finding is an important step in understanding still-mysterious gamma-ray bursts, the most powerful eruptions in the known universe. News brought to you in part by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.