China monitors the brightest gamma-ray burst ever
The Institute of High Energy Physics (IHEP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), in cooperation with 40 research institutions from around the world, released on Wednesday its latest findings related to the brightest gamma-ray burst (GRB) recorded last October.
The brightest explosion ever, scientists named GRB 221009A, occurred in our solar system on October 9, 2022, two billion light-years from Earth.
Scientists consider that an eruption of this kind occurs once every thousand years.
With the two Chinese space telescopes, Insight-HXMT and GECAM-C, scientists have succeeded in accurately measuring how bright the explosion was and how much energy it was emitting. A gamma ray burst is one of the most powerful types of electromagnetic radiation ever, coming from outside the solar system.
The researchers, including academics from the University of Leicester, reported that the GRB was about 70 times brighter than any previously recorded event.
Over the past months, they have worked to study this cosmic explosion, which is the strongest and brightest energy explosion that occurs in the universe, using various tools, in an attempt to further characterize the explosion.
The data captured from this rare event, which has baffled scientists for years, could be useful for understanding the details of the massive explosions that generate gamma-ray bursts.
"We've been very lucky to see something like this," said astronomer Dr Phil Evans. "We estimate that these bright events only happen once every thousand years."
Gamma ray bursts were discovered for the first time during the sixties of the last century by a group of satellites that were made to detect secret nuclear weapons tests.
Most sources of gamma ray bursts are billions of light years away from Earth, which means that these explosions are at the same time very powerful (the normal explosion releases in a few seconds an energy close to what the sun releases in billions of years), and it occurs in all parts of the universe and is very rare.
Source: websites