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.
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.
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.
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.