First-time ever, the brightest flash of light has been observed by?astronomers?from an event that occurred 2.4 billion light-years from Earth and was likely produced by the formation of a black hole.
The spurt of gamma rays which is the most intense form of electromagnetic radiation was first noticed by orbiting telescopes last week, and its glow is still being watched by scientists across the globe.
Talking to the media, Astrophysicist Brendan OÂ’Connor said?that bursts of gamma-ray that last hundreds of seconds are considered to be caused by disappearing massive stars, greater than 30 times bigger than our Sun.
The star blew up in a supernova, collapsed into a black hole, then matter formed in a disk around the black hole, fell inside, and then discharged in a jet of energy that travels at 99.99 percent the speed of light.
?“It’s breaking records, both in the number of photons, and the energy of the photons that are reaching us,” said O’Connor, adding “Something this bright, this nearby, is a once-in-a-century event.”
“Gamma-ray bursts in a general release the same amount of energy that our Sun produces over its entire lifetime in the span of a few seconds — and this event is the brightest gamma-ray burst.”
Moreover, the gamma-ray eruption, called GRB 221009A, was first detected by telescopes of NASAÂ’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, and Wind spacecraft.
According to reports, it came from the direction of the constellation Sagitta and travelled for an estimated 1.9 billion years before arriving on Earth. However, because the universe is expanding, its actual journey was shorter.
In addition, astronomers have a unique opportunity to gain new knowledge about topics like black hole formation since they can witness the event today as though we are viewing a 1.9 billion-year-old recording of those events taking place before our eyes.
“That’s what makes this sort of science so addictive — you get this adrenaline rush when these things happen,” stated O’Connor.