Gamma Ray Bursters: Explaining the Mystery 8 Billion Light Years Away

[Diesel]

I've been searching the internet for a reasoanable explanation for the fenomenon and one observation of a GRB 8 billion light years from Earth tranformed 1.3 times the mass of the sun into gamma radiation and 16 days later they detected a new blue galaxy with stars already forming. Can someone explain that??

 

[Phobos]

reference link?

 

[Diesel]

http://www.geocities.com/tonylance/gammaray.html

 

[Chronos]

The GRB is a resident of the subsequently observed faint galaxy.

 

[rollingstone]

_one observation of a GRB 8 billion light years from Earth _

Cor, that's a long way off. Can it harm us or touch us in some way or other?

 

[ziggwarth]

_one observation of a GRB 8 billion light years from Earth _

Cor, that's a long way off. Can it harm us or touch us in some way or other?

From what I've read about this, a gamma ray burst approx. 6000 light years from Earth that points in our direction may annihilate most or all the life on Earth.
But 8 billion light years away, no, it can't harm us. :)

 

[Chronos]

Welcome to PF Zig! Indeed, we would not want a GRB to erupt anywhere near planet earth. Even one within 10,000 light years would be pretty scary. But we appear to be in luck. The nearest one to date has been around a billion light years distant. Scintillating to scientists, but not threatening.

 

[kaos]

Anyway , is the Centauro event real, the one with the proton having a bullets energy hitting the earth. Does this have anything to do with GRBs?

 

[Nereid]

"the Centauro event"?

In any case, if a proton had the energy of "a speeding bullet", how would you write that kaos? I mean, you read of particle accelerators making particles with energies of GeV and even TeV ...

As to a connection between ultra-high energy cosmic rays and GRBs? Stay tuned!

 

[Garth]

As to a connection between ultra-high energy cosmic rays and GRBs? Stay tuned!

GRB's appear to be cosmologically distant, that is GRB after glows are high z. However, because of the significant energy loss by the GZK (Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin 1966) mechanism, the present universe is not transparent to the highest energy cosmic rays (10²⁰ eV), http://prola.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v73/i26/p3491_1.

Therefore any sources contributing to the bulk of these cosmic rays should be within 500 Mpc of Earth for 10¹⁹ eV CR particles and a few ten's of Mpc for 10²⁰ eV CR particles.

It would therefore seem to be difficult to sustain a connection between GRB's and the highest energy cosmic rays.

Garth

 

[ziggwarth]

Welcome to PF Zig! Indeed, we would not want a GRB to erupt anywhere near planet earth. Even one within 10,000 light years would be pretty scary. But we appear to be in luck. The nearest one to date has been around a billion light years distant. Scintillating to scientists, but not threatening.

Thanks for the warm welcome, Chronos. :)

I've read about one hypernova only 25 million light years away from here, in the galaxy M74. The GRB didn't hit us though.

Also, I've heard about some very massive stars in our own galaxy only 5500 light years away that with a 50% or so probability will exterminate most life on Earth within 1 million years when they die.

If something of this is wrong, please let me know. :)

 

[OSalcido]

Anyway , is the Centauro event real, the one with the proton having a bullets energy hitting the earth. Does this have anything to do with GRBs?

you mean this ? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oh-My-God_particle

 

[Nereid]

GRB's appear to be cosmologically distant, that is GRB after glows are high z. However, because of the significant energy loss by the GZK (Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin 1966) mechanism, the present universe is not transparent to the highest energy cosmic rays (10²⁰ eV), http://prola.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v73/i26/p3491_1.

Therefore any sources contributing to the bulk of these cosmic rays should be within 500 Mpc of Earth for 10¹⁹ eV CR particles and a few ten's of Mpc for 10²⁰ eV CR particles.

It would therefore seem to be difficult to sustain a connection between GRB's and the highest energy cosmic rays.

That is one possible constraint Garth.

However, it seems http://www.aip.de/~jcg/grbrsh.html GRBs are close enough to be, potentially, the source of the UHECR, and of course those below the GZK limit could travel much further.

Looking at GRBs a little more closely, we see that at least some long-soft ones are associated with (at least one kind of) core-collapse supernova, which we also know to occur at all kinds of distances. On top of that, despite the apparent association of one short-hard GRB with a giant elliptical (and so, possibly, a compact object merger scenario), the cause of these is far from settled (even the question of whether there's a single type of progenitor).

Finally, there's the question of quantity ... does anyone have a good paper they've seen that they'd like to share which compares estimates of likely/possible production rates with what we observe (mediated by flight times and mixmastering by magnetic fields)?

 

[Nereid]

you mean this ? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oh-My-God_particle

Welcome to Physics Forums, OSalcido!

This CERN article has a few words about Centauro events (yes, they are indeed real, and may help us do particle physics in regimes that will be impossible for us to probe with accelerators we build for ourselves, such as the LHC, for decades or even centuries yet).

 

[Chronos]

We are not imminently imperiled by any of our stellar neighbors. Eta Carinae, which is about 7500 light years away, is probably the nearest 'immediate' supernova threat. It is an enormous star, so it will put on quite a show. It is not, however, thought to pose any real threat to life on earth. Here is an article that may be of interest:
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/supernova_threat_021216.html

 

[kjknohw]

Supernovas were more common during the early universe because of faster star formation. Now they are rarer.

 

[turbo]

Supernovas were more common during the early universe because of faster star formation. Now they are rarer.

How do you know this? Is there supportable evidence?

 

[Entropy]

How do you know this? Is there supportable evidence?

It's not that big of a secret... Stars back then formed very fast because the universe had a much larger density.

 

[turbo]

It might not be a secret, but I had not heard that galaxies at high redshift (z~3-6 for instance) have a higher rate of supernovae production than lower-redshift galaxies. Wouldn't we have to see this for the initial statement to be supportable? If you can point me to some supporting evidence, I would be grateful.

 

[Yaaks]

Near Earth GRBs would be harmful only if the beam focus is directed towards Earth...

 

[SpaceTiger]

Near Earth GRBs would be harmful only if the beam focus is directed towards Earth...

This is true, though one could pick nits and say that it's only called a GRB if the beam is pointed towards us. Otherwise, it's called a supernova (if the popular theories are right). Astro terminology is often distorted with time, however, so the term may eventually be applied to all such objects, whether they appear as a GRB or not. A similar thing happened with quasars and QSOs. Those two terms weren't always synonyms.

 

[Yaaks]

If the popular theories are right and I am quite sure they are convincing enough, GRBs and Quasars are similar in-effect, but as the theory suggests Quasars could only have formed in the early universe when the gas cloud densities was very great, not so with GRBs which can 'also' be a consequence of a super-massive stellar death, an aftermath of a supernova explosion if the star is massive enough..
Please Clarify..

 

[SpaceTiger]

If the popular theories are right and I am quite sure they are convincing enough, GRBs and Quasars are similar in-effect

My analogy with quasars only concerned the changing of terminology. I've not heard any theories in which GRBs are similar to quasars. Far as I know, GRBs are considered to be beamed light from supernovae. There are several theories on the origin of the supernovae (e.g. massive stars, colliding white dwarfs), but no evidence to suggest GRBs are related to accretion onto a black hole.

 

[Yaaks]

There is no evidence,,, but it is possible..

 

[Nereid]

There is no evidence,,, but it is possible..

It is "possible" for Nereid to go from Deimos to Io via quantum tunneling ... but that 'possibility' isn't very exciting.