A strange gamma ray burst won’t in shape our knowing of the cosmos
Astronomers have noticed a weird blast of gamma radiation from room that defies categorisation, and it may well necessarily mean a hole in our knowledge of how black holes sort
Area
7 December 2022
A bizarre blast of radiation from place could upend how we categorise these flashes, termed gamma ray bursts (GRBs). It seems to occur from a black gap forming amazingly slowly after two stars merge, indicating a hole in our comprehending of black holes.
There are two key kinds of gamma ray bursts: quick GRBs, which previous fewer than 2 seconds and commonly come about when two neutron stars smash jointly and collapse into a black gap, and long GRBs, which can very last minutes and are affiliated with supernovas. But GRB 211211A, noticed in 2021, does not match in that dichotomy.
4 different investigate groups observed the GRB, and they all observed the similar point: it certainly came from two stars colliding, but it lasted about 1 moment. “Two seconds is how very long it will take in a merger for a black gap to sort and take in up all the things in its setting, so it is really unusual that this lasted a complete minute,” suggests Benjamin Gompertz at the College of Birmingham in the United kingdom.
A person of the groups advised the merger may possibly have still left powering a enormous, speedily rotating neutron star known as a magnetar, which could be powering the gamma ray emission after the initial collision. The other a few concluded that it most probable left at the rear of a black hole, but it’s not distinct how that could generate these a very long GRB.
“In these couple times amongst the merger of the neutron stars and the formation of the black gap, there is a big question mark ideal now,” claims Eleonora Troja at Tor Vergata College of Rome. “This is telling us that there is a missing piece of the puzzle that we did not even know was lacking.”
The lacking piece possibly has to do with the behaviour of the black gap itself, says Troja. “The black gap is like the butler in a criminal offense motion picture – you know how you watch a crime film or Television set display and the to start with suspect is usually the butler? In astronomy, it’s the black hole, for the reason that we know that it has the means to build factors that we do not fully grasp,” claims Troja.
While GRB 211211A is by considerably the largest outlier from the GRB categorisations, it is not the only 1. Other “oddball” GRBs haven’t been observed so completely, even though, so finding out this 1 will aid us realize the others. “I’ve been calling this the Rosetta Stone of prolonged-period GRBs simply because it is letting us link the physics to the observations in substantially even worse datasets,” says Gompertz. We may possibly will need a third class of GRBs for these strange events, the researchers say.
Journal references: Character, DOI:10.1038/s41586-022-05327-3, DOI:10.1038/s41586-022-05403-8, DOI:10.1038/s41586-022-05404-7, DOI:10.1038/s41586-022-05390-w Mother nature Astronomy, DOI:10.1038/s41550-022-01819-4
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Astronomers have noticed a weird blast of gamma radiation from room that defies categorisation, and it may well necessarily mean a hole in our knowledge of how black holes sort
Area
7 December 2022
A bizarre blast of radiation from place could upend how we categorise these flashes, termed gamma ray bursts (GRBs). It seems to occur from a black gap forming amazingly slowly after two stars merge, indicating a hole in our comprehending of black holes.
There are two key kinds of gamma ray bursts: quick GRBs, which previous fewer than 2 seconds and commonly come about when two neutron stars smash jointly and collapse into a black gap, and long GRBs, which can very last minutes and are affiliated with supernovas. But GRB 211211A, noticed in 2021, does not match in that dichotomy.
4 different investigate groups observed the GRB, and they all observed the similar point: it certainly came from two stars colliding, but it lasted about 1 moment. “Two seconds is how very long it will take in a merger for a black gap to sort and take in up all the things in its setting, so it is really unusual that this lasted a complete minute,” suggests Benjamin Gompertz at the College of Birmingham in the United kingdom.
A person of the groups advised the merger may possibly have still left powering a enormous, speedily rotating neutron star known as a magnetar, which could be powering the gamma ray emission after the initial collision. The other a few concluded that it most probable left at the rear of a black hole, but it’s not distinct how that could generate these a very long GRB.
“In these couple times amongst the merger of the neutron stars and the formation of the black gap, there is a big question mark ideal now,” claims Eleonora Troja at Tor Vergata College of Rome. “This is telling us that there is a missing piece of the puzzle that we did not even know was lacking.”
The lacking piece possibly has to do with the behaviour of the black gap itself, says Troja. “The black gap is like the butler in a criminal offense motion picture – you know how you watch a crime film or Television set display and the to start with suspect is usually the butler? In astronomy, it’s the black hole, for the reason that we know that it has the means to build factors that we do not fully grasp,” claims Troja.
While GRB 211211A is by considerably the largest outlier from the GRB categorisations, it is not the only 1. Other “oddball” GRBs haven’t been observed so completely, even though, so finding out this 1 will aid us realize the others. “I’ve been calling this the Rosetta Stone of prolonged-period GRBs simply because it is letting us link the physics to the observations in substantially even worse datasets,” says Gompertz. We may possibly will need a third class of GRBs for these strange events, the researchers say.
Journal references: Character, DOI:10.1038/s41586-022-05327-3, DOI:10.1038/s41586-022-05403-8, DOI:10.1038/s41586-022-05404-7, DOI:10.1038/s41586-022-05390-w Mother nature Astronomy, DOI:10.1038/s41550-022-01819-4
Signal up to our absolutely free Launchpad newsletter for a voyage throughout the galaxy and over and above, each Friday
Much more on these subject areas: