In 2022, scientists detected a strange signal coming from the farthest point in the universe. The most powerful cosmic explosion ever observed.
Now, scientists say they know what caused it: matter and antimatter colliding and annihilating each other with a 99.9% chance of happening. The speed of light.
The cosmic explosion was a gamma-ray burst (GRB), a massive explosion. gamma ray light Which is released when a massive star collapses into Black holeAs the resulting cosmic giant gobbles up matter, some of that material is thrown in the opposite direction of the growing black hole, creating powerful jets of energy that radiate across the dying star’s exterior, according to a new study. Statement from NASA.
When these missiles target the Earth, they can be detected by satellites and spacecraft.
Related: Brightest gamma-ray burst ever disrupts Earth’s upper atmosphere
The brightest gamma-ray burst ever recorded — nicknamed BOAT but officially named GRB 221009A — was detected on October 9, 2022. At the time, it sent so many gamma rays toward our planet that it saturated all the detectors on spacecraft orbiting Earth, including NASA’s probe. Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope.
As a result, the detectors stopped working during the most intense part of the explosion. But after about five minutes, the explosion subsided and the detectors started working again. At that moment, the detectors detected an unusual energy peak of about 12 million electron volts, which lasted about 40 seconds, according to the statement. For comparison, visible light Its energy is about 2 to 3 electron volts.
“When I first saw this signal, I got goosebumps,” said the lead researcher. Maria Edwige RavasioScientists have been studying gamma-ray bursts for 50 years, but this is the first time they have detected a signal like this with such high confidence, the astrophysicist at Radboud University in the Netherlands and the Brera Observatory said in the statement.
The researchers say this strange energy peak is evidence that electrons and their antimatter partners, called positrons, are colliding with and destroying each other. When these two types of particles destroy each other, they typically release energy of about half a million electron volts. While that’s far less than 12 million electron volts, the researchers have an explanation: The detected jets were traveling toward Earth at nearly the speed of light, thus compressing the waves together. This “blue shift” pushes the waves toward much higher energy levels, which lie at the “bluer” end of the electromagnetic spectrum.
“The chances that this feature is just a fluctuation in noise are less than one chance in half a billion,” according to a co-author of the study. Umm Shahran Salafism“This is a very exciting time for us,” said the astrophysicist at the Brera Observatory of the National Institute of Astrophysics (INAF) in Milan in the statement.
These findings may shed light on the chaotic environment inside these jets. Although we have observed them for decades, scientists still do not understand all the processes that occur when they form.
The new findings were described Thursday (July 25) in the journal Sciences.
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