The largest gamma-ray burst ever recorded, a one-of-a-kind energy peak, has been detected by scientists. NASA announced the groundbreaking discovery Thursday, stemming from a unique burst of gamma rays detected by NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope this past October.
The findings, published on July 26 in the journal Science, mark the first high-confidence emission line detected in 50 years of GRB research. “A few minutes after the BOAT erupted, Fermi’s Gamma-ray Burst Monitor recorded an unusual energy peak that caught our attention,” said lead researcher Maria Edvige Ravasio from Radboud University in the Netherlands. A discovery that gave her “goosebumps,” she added.
Gamma-ray bursts are the most powerful explosions in the universe. They let you off with blindingly large numbers of gamma rays, the highest-energy form of light. Most, however, occur when the core of a massive star runs out of nuclear fuel and slowly cools down and shrinks further before the formation of a black hole. After this, the black hole powers huge jets that bore through the surface of the star at nearly the speed of light.
Family of jets like the BOAT, are creating much interest on the part of the scientists. The emission line was revealed almost five minutes hours after the detection of the burst when the general saturating effects had relaxed at least a little by then. Early detections of similar emissions by other researchers were more or less ignored as statistical flukes.
Elizabeth Hays, Fermi project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, put the discovery in context: “After decades of studying these incredible cosmic explosions, we still don’t understand the details of how these jets work,” she said. “Finding clues like this remarkable emission line will help scientists investigate this extreme environment more deeply.”
The team of researchers says the most probable origin of a jet emitting matter is the annihilation of electrons and their antimatter counterparts, called positrons, which liberates a large amount of energy, mostly directed towards Earth.
This is a key addition to the understanding of gamma-ray bursts and the extreme worlds in which they take place, opening new lines of inquiry and insight into the cosmos.