Fermi Telescope Spots Giant Explosion in Space

[Saturni]

Friday Febury 20th, 2009.
NASA's Fermi telescope has spotted an massive and gigantic explosion in space which is detected to be roughly the largest gamma-ray burst ever.
The blast put off three to five thousand billion times that of visible light.
Scientists believe that the blast occurred about 12.2 light years away from Earth.
Amazing, isn't it?

-Derek

 

[mathman]

Could you give a reference? The distance looks much too close.

 

[Nabeshin]

Probably missed a billion there, because to the best of my knowledge, I am not dead.

 

[mgb_phys]

http://www.sciencecodex.com/nasas_fermi_telescope_sees_most_extreme_gammaray_blast_yet

Hey, what's a factor of 10^9 between friends.

 

[Saturni]

Probably missed a billion there, because to the best of my knowledge, I am not dead.

I think your mixed up, this news is from NASA, I directly read this over roughly fifteen times, I even created a report for my project at school on it. I have not typoed anything, nor have I left out a "billion".

-Derek

 

[Saturni]

I think your mixed up, this news is from NASA, I directly read this over roughly fifteen times, I even created a report for my project at school on it. I have not typoed anything, nor have I left out a "billion".

-Derek

Probably missed a billion there, because to the best of my knowledge, I am not dead.

Oh yes, Sorry, I did make an mistake.
Wow, I must be tired tonight.
Yes, I did typo. 12.2 billion lightyears away.
Sorry for the misunderstanding.
-Derek

 

[Saturni]

Could you give a reference? The distance looks much too close.

Yes, I typoed.

The correct calculation is 12.2 billion lightyears away.
Sorry for the misunderstanding,
-Derek.

 

[Nabeshin]

I think your mixed up, this news is from NASA, I directly read this over roughly fifteen times, I even created a report for my project at school on it. I have not typoed anything, nor have I left out a "billion".

-Derek

Even if it was directly from NASA, I would still say they're wrong

 

[alseth]

but it certainly would be interesting to have such a peculiar object which made that GRB only 12,2 ly away (well, not mentioning the Earth sterilisation side-effect...)

 

[taxman]

Thank you Thank you Thank you. I reported a large single light in the sky to the Astronomy group that night it was very bright and increased in size to about the size of a quarter then shrank down to about the size of a pencil eraser then slowly went out. I never heard anything from them back as to what it was. I was right I though it was a huge explosion in space. I wish they had emailed me and told me I was not crazy. Again Thank you thank you thank you. I hate to say it but I smoke and my family does not let me smoke in the house so I go out at all times of the night which is why I was out side when I saw the fireball very late at night.

 

[Nabeshin]

Thank you Thank you Thank you. I reported a large single light in the sky to the Astronomy group that night it was very bright and increased in size to about the size of a quarter then shrank down to about the size of a pencil eraser then slowly went out. I never heard anything from them back as to what it was. I was right I though it was a huge explosion in space. I wish they had emailed me and told me I was not crazy. Again Thank you thank you thank you. I hate to say it but I smoke and my family does not let me smoke in the house so I go out at all times of the night which is why I was out side when I saw the fireball very late at night.

This was a gamma ray burst, so unless your eyes are sensitive to gamma rays...

 

[mgb_phys]

This was a gamma ray burst, so unless your eyes are sensitive to gamma rays...

If you release several hundred times the total lifetime energy of the sun in a few minutes in Gamma rays you are going to light up the sky in every waveband.

Although only the nearest GRBs are naked eye objects eg GRB080319B

 

[Nabeshin]

If you release several hundred times the total lifetime energy of the sun in a few minutes in Gamma rays you are going to light up the sky in every waveband.

Although only the nearest GRBs are naked eye objects eg GRB080319B

Yeah I don't think this particular one would be visible to the naked eye though, seeing as it's ~13B ly away.

 

[learningisfun]

I remember in my science class back , my teacher would say stuff like , star wars has very little true facts about science, their is no sound of explosion ins space. THen amake a relevant connection to todays pop culture like Star Wars. XD

 

[Jonathan Scott]

I remember in my science class back , my teacher would say stuff like , star wars has very little true facts about science, their is no sound of explosion ins space. THen amake a relevant connection to todays pop culture like Star Wars. XD

Well, I've heard a hiss and crackle noise at exactly the same time that I saw a meteor, which seemed scientifically impossible after I thought about it, as the sound should take minutes to reach me. However, I later found that that this is a widely known effect, and there's a theory that meteors induce intense radio waves around audible frequencies and these can in turn induce vibrations in materials, causing corresponding sounds to be emitted locally. This same idea could therefore be used as a scientifically plausible excuse for being able to hear distant explosions in space (but I still don't think you'd hear a GRB from 13 billion years ago).

 

[Chronos]

The 'nothing' in intergalactic space means it is an exceedingly poor medium for sound wave propogation. The crackle pop of a meteor is not surprising. They ionize and push shock waves through the atmosphere resulting in sound and em waves,

 

[Division]

It might just be that I overlooked it, but, does anyone know what caused the explosion and what it was that exploded?

 

[chicopee]

12.2 billion light years, isn't that about the age of the universe?

 

[gabrielh]

12.2 billion light years, isn't that about the age of the universe?

Close, current theory and observation suggests that it is betweent 13.5 billion and 14 billion light years old.

Source: http://lambda.gsfc.nasa.gov/product/map/dr3/pub_papers/fiveyear/basic_results/wmap5basic.pdf

 

[mgb_phys]

It might just be that I overlooked it, but, does anyone know what caused the explosion and what it was that exploded?

It was a Gamma Ray Burst (GRB) these are probably very early high mass (and so short lived) stars collapsing and forming black holes.

 

[diffusion]

Close, current theory and observation suggests that it is betweent 13.5 billion and 14 billion light years old.

Source: http://lambda.gsfc.nasa.gov/product/map/dr3/pub_papers/fiveyear/basic_results/wmap5basic.pdf

Light years old? Would that make me 1.8 meters old?

 

[mheslep]

PBS's NOVA broadcast an episode on the discovery of these large gamma ray bursts and the 30 year long puzzle on what was causing them. Several interesting points in the episode that I doubt would be appear in the relevant papers:

• original detection via a 1967 satellite to look for gamma ray signatures of nuclear detonations
• first hypothesis they were coming from inside the galaxy ('had' to be because the energy was so large the source would exceed even e=mc^2 possibilities if it were outside the galaxy)
• proposal that the GRB were actually coming from all over the sky, not just the galactic plane, and thus outside the galaxy, author is derided.
• proposal that the GRB stems from a small angular beam of radiation from a black hole, versus the previous isotropic radiation idea, allows e=mc^2 sources back in.
• realization that these huge GRBs would light up gasses in the visible spectrum leads to world wide on the fly searches to observe the visible spectrum simultaneously with the GRB, success.
• observation in visible spectrum allows red shift determination and thus distance measurement, events are coming from the 'edge' of, i.e. the early universe (luckily for us) making the energy released at the source by far the largest of known cosmic events.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/2901_gamma.html