The Italian/Dutch BeppoSAX satellite has detected the most powerful gamma-ray burst yet found. Ground observers were able to pick up the rapidly fading visible-light afterglow it left behind.
"The burst appeared to be more luminous than the whole rest of the universe, and that would be very hard to explain by most current theories," according to Prof Shrinivas Kulkarni, of the California Institute of Technology. It was picked up on January 23rd.
What causes these bursts is unknown but when they blow they produce a massive release of gamma-rays. These are detected by satellites and the source is then quickly localised so that earth-based telescopes can hunt for the visual remnants of the blast.
This is an international effort and instruments around the world immediately search for these images.
The Palomar Observatory's 60-inch telescope picked up the afterglow which provides astronomers with information that might help identify what causes these astounding releases of energy. A sequence of images was taken starting only 22 seconds after the original satellite warning by an automated telescope operated by a team from the University of Michigan. Scientists were able to estimate that the burst occurred at the edge of the universe, nine billion light years away.
"The peak brightness of the visible light afterglow alone would be millions of times greater than the luminosity of an entire galaxy and thousands of times brighter than the most luminous quasars known," stated Prof George Djorgovski of Caltech.
"If the gamma rays were emitted equally in all directions, their energy would correspond to 10 thousand times the energy emitted by our sun over its entire lifetime so far, which is about five billion years. Yet the burst lasted only a few tens of seconds."