Sentences with phrase «powerful burst of gamma rays»

Stephen Thorsett of Princeton University in New Jersey has been thinking about the implications for life on Earth should a nearby object in space suddenly emit a powerful burst of gamma rays.

For this theory to work, the beams released by black holes would have to have strong, self - generated magnetic fields and the rotation of particles around the fields would then give off powerful bursts of gamma ray radiation.

Meanwhile, astronomers using another NASA satellite, the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, believe they now know the source of powerful bursts of gamma rays coming from points distributed evenly across the sky.

Not exact matches

Black holes gobble up some matter and launch the rest away in powerful jets, scattering atoms within and between galaxies; pairs of neutron stars, also targets of Advanced LIGO, may ultimately trigger gamma - ray bursts, among the brightest and most energetic explosions known in the universe.

This year, astronomers found they are also responsible for some of the most powerful explosions — short gamma - ray bursts.

First, it explains the origins of some gamma ray bursts, the second most powerful known events in the cosmos other than merging black holes.

Schaefer realized that only a gamma - ray burst, the most powerful type of explosion ever observed, is bright enough to give us information about conditions near the edge of the visible universe, more than 13 billion light - years away.

The bursts that appeared to be the most powerful churned out most of their energy in intense, short - wavelength gamma rays, while the weakest ones had peak energies at longer wavelength x-rays.

The powerful blasts of particles and light energy known as gamma - ray bursts come from violent cosmic events in deep space, such as stellar explosions and black hole collisions.

Like the aftershocks of an earthquake, violent x-ray flares have been discovered in the aftermath of gamma - ray bursts, the most powerful explosions in the universe.

In rare cases, black hole births are even more spectacular, with the star firing out powerful jets of high - energy radiation as it dies — a phenomenon known as a gamma - ray burst.

And gamma - ray bursts — thought to result from especially powerful supernovas or stellar collisions — are so rare that the researchers calculated that, over a billion years, there's only about a 1 in 3 billion chance of one killing off tardigrades.

Indeed, to shove aside such vast volumes of gas, the jets have churned out as much energy as nearly a billion gamma - ray bursts — the most powerful instantaneous explosions known.

«Gamma - ray bursts are uniquely powerful and probably the only way for a very long time to observe the moment of first light — that redshift when the very first stars formed,» Lamb remarks.

It could easily have been caused by a supernova punching through the top and bottom of the galactic disk, the intense stellar winds from 10 or so hot stars, a powerful gamma - ray burst, or even a large star moving through the area.