{"id":37186,"date":"2022-12-08T09:35:20","date_gmt":"2022-12-08T09:35:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ismartnetwork.co.uk\/?p=37186"},"modified":"2022-12-08T09:43:28","modified_gmt":"2022-12-08T09:43:28","slug":"earth-hit-by-strange-gamma-ray-burst","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ismartnetwork.co.uk\/?p=37186","title":{"rendered":"Earth hit by strange ‘gamma-ray burst’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Earth hit by strange ‘gamma-ray burst’ blast of high-energy radiation from the collision of two neutron stars that changes scientists’ understanding of how these cosmic explosions happen <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

By Christopher Carbone U.S. Science And Technology Editor For Dailymail.Com19:25 07 Dec 2022, updated 20:46 07 Dec 2022<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A weird gamma ray burst doesn’t fit our understanding of the cosmos<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Astronomers have spotted a strange blast of gamma radiation from space that defies categorisation, and it may mean a gap in our understanding of how black holes form<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>SPACE <\/a><\/strong>7 December 2022<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Leah Crane<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Gamma ray bursts blast radiation into spaceNASA\/Swift\/Cruz deWilde<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A strange blast of radiation from space may upend how we categorise such flashes, called gamma ray bursts (GRBs). It seems to come from a black hole forming surprisingly slowly after two stars merge, indicating a gap in our understanding of black holes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are two main types of gamma ray bursts<\/a>: short GRBs, which last less than 2 seconds and generally occur when two neutron stars smash together<\/a> and collapse into a black hole, and long GRBs, which can last minutes and are associated with supernovas. But GRB 211211A, spotted in 2021, doesn\u2019t fit in that dichotomy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Four separate research groups observed the GRB, and they all saw the same thing: it definitely came from two stars colliding, but it lasted about one minute. \u201cTwo seconds is how long it takes in a merger for a black hole to form and eat up everything in its environment, so it\u2019s very strange that this lasted a whole minute,\u201d says Benjamin Gompertz<\/a> at the University of Birmingham in the UK.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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One of the teams suggested the merger may have left behind a huge, rapidly rotating neutron star called a magnetar, which could be powering the gamma ray emission after the initial collision. The other three concluded that it most likely left behind a black hole, but it\u2019s not clear how that could create such a long GRB<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read more: Astronomers have just watched the most powerful explosion ever seen<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn those few moments between the merger of the neutron stars and the formation of the black hole, there is a big question mark right now,\u201d says Eleonora Troja<\/a> at Tor Vergata University of Rome. \u201cThis is telling us that there is a missing piece of the puzzle that we didn\u2019t even know was missing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The missing piece probably has to do with the behaviour of the black hole<\/a> itself, says Troja. \u201cThe black hole is like the butler in a crime movie \u2013 you know how you watch a crime movie or TV show and the first suspect is always the butler? In astronomy, it\u2019s the black hole, because we know that it has the ability to create things that we do not understand,\u201d says Troja.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While GRB 211211A is by far the biggest outlier from the GRB categorisations, it isn\u2019t the only one. Other \u201coddball\u201d GRBs haven\u2019t been observed so thoroughly, though, so studying this one will help us understand the others. \u201cI\u2019ve been calling this the Rosetta Stone of extended-duration GRBs because it\u2019s letting us connect the physics to the observations in much worse datasets,\u201d says Gompertz. We may need a third category of GRBs for these weird events, the researchers say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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