Scientists spot blast at edge of universe
Astronomers have detected the most distant gamma-ray burst ever found. The cosmic explosion came from a star that detonated about 12.8 billion light years from earth.
The new record holder, called GRB 080913, was first detected on September 13 by Nasa’s Swift space observatory. Telescopes around the world soon detected its afterglow at longer wavelengths, and the light spectrum they observed revealed its incredible distance: 12.8 billion light years away, Newscientist.com reported.
That is about 70 million light years farther than the previous record holder. “This is the most amazing burst Swift has seen,” said the mission’s lead scientist Neil Gehrels of the Goddard Space Flight Centre in Greenbelt, Maryland.
“It’s coming to us from near the edge of the visible universe,” the website quoted him as saying.
Astronomers have been hoping to discover very distant GRBs because they exploded when the universe was young—they are being seen now because their light took billions of years to reach earth. These ancient GRBs could reveal details about the lives and deaths of the very earliest stars.
GRB 080913 exploded less than 825 million years after the big bang. “This burst accompanies the death of a star from one of the universe’s early generations,” said Swift team member Patricia Schady of University College London.
Gamma-ray bursts are fleeting blasts of high-energy radiation that occur when massive stars die and shoot out high-speed jets of matter. The expanding matter initially produces gamma rays, but when it starts colliding with surrounding gas, it creates afterglows at longer wavelengths.
Gamma rays don’t penetrate earth’s atmosphere and so have to be viewed from space. AGENCIES
Astrophysicists find biggest star to date
Washington: An international team of astrophysicists has found and “weighed” the most massive star to date, which has a mass 116 times greater than that of the sun.
The team was led by Universite de Montreal researchers from the Centre de recherche en astrophysique du Quebec (CRAQ). They successfully “weighed” a star of a binary system with a mass 116 times greater than that of the Sun, waltzing with a companion of 89 solar masses, doubly beating the previous record and breaking the symbolic barrier of 100 solar masses for the first time.
Located in the massive star cluster NGC 3603, the supermassive star system, known under the name of A1, has a rotation period of 3.77 days. ANI
The new record holder, called GRB 080913, was first detected on September 13 by Nasa’s Swift space observatory. Telescopes around the world soon detected its afterglow at longer wavelengths, and the light spectrum they observed revealed its incredible distance: 12.8 billion light years away, Newscientist.com reported.
That is about 70 million light years farther than the previous record holder. “This is the most amazing burst Swift has seen,” said the mission’s lead scientist Neil Gehrels of the Goddard Space Flight Centre in Greenbelt, Maryland.
“It’s coming to us from near the edge of the visible universe,” the website quoted him as saying.
Astronomers have been hoping to discover very distant GRBs because they exploded when the universe was young—they are being seen now because their light took billions of years to reach earth. These ancient GRBs could reveal details about the lives and deaths of the very earliest stars.
GRB 080913 exploded less than 825 million years after the big bang. “This burst accompanies the death of a star from one of the universe’s early generations,” said Swift team member Patricia Schady of University College London.
Gamma-ray bursts are fleeting blasts of high-energy radiation that occur when massive stars die and shoot out high-speed jets of matter. The expanding matter initially produces gamma rays, but when it starts colliding with surrounding gas, it creates afterglows at longer wavelengths.
Gamma rays don’t penetrate earth’s atmosphere and so have to be viewed from space. AGENCIES
Astrophysicists find biggest star to date
Washington: An international team of astrophysicists has found and “weighed” the most massive star to date, which has a mass 116 times greater than that of the sun.
The team was led by Universite de Montreal researchers from the Centre de recherche en astrophysique du Quebec (CRAQ). They successfully “weighed” a star of a binary system with a mass 116 times greater than that of the Sun, waltzing with a companion of 89 solar masses, doubly beating the previous record and breaking the symbolic barrier of 100 solar masses for the first time.
Located in the massive star cluster NGC 3603, the supermassive star system, known under the name of A1, has a rotation period of 3.77 days. ANI
FROM A DISTANCE: The blast seen here through Nasa observatory Swift’s X-ray and UV/optical sensors. The blast was from an exploding star 12.8 billion light-years away
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