Black hole birth captured: Biggest, brightest to happen in at least 20 years

Black hole birth captured: Biggest, brightest to happen in at least 20 years

Nov. 21, 2013 — Intelligent telescopes designed by Los Alamos National Laboratory got a front row seat recently for an unusual birth.

---

Share This:

"Los Alamos' RAPTOR telescopes in New Mexico and Hawaii received a very bright cosmic birth announcement for a black hole on April 27," said astrophysicist Tom Vestrand, lead author of a paper appearing today in the journal Science that highlights the unusual event.

"This was the burst of the century," said Los Alamos co-author James Wren. "It's the biggest, brightest one to happen in at least 20 years, and maybe even longer than that."

The RAPTOR (RAPid Telescopes for Optical Response) system is a network of small robotic observatories that scan the skies for optical anomalies such as flashes emanating from a star in its death throes as it collapses and becomes a black hole -- an object so dense that not even light can escape its gravity field. This birth announcement arrived from the constellation Leo in the form of an exceptionally bright flash of visible light that accompanied a powerful burst of cosmic gamma-ray emissions.

What made such an extremely rare event even more spectacular for scientists, however, is that, in addition to the RAPTOR sighting, it was witnessed by an armada of instruments -- including gamma-ray and X-ray detectors aboard NASA's Fermi, NuSTAR and Swift satellites. While the NASA instruments recorded some of the highest-energy gamma-ray bursts ever measured from such an event, RAPTOR noticed that the massive and violent transformation of a star into a black hole yielded a lingering "afterglow" that faded in lock-step with the highest energy gamma-rays.

"This afterglow is interesting to see," said paper co-author Przemek Wozniak of Los Alamos's Intelligence and Space Research Division. "We normally see a flash associated with the beginning of an event, analogous to the bright flash that you would see coinciding with the explosion of a firecracker. This afterglow may be somewhat analogous to the embers that you might be able to see lingering after your firecracker has exploded. It is the link between the optical phenomenon and the gamma-rays that we haven't seen before, and that's what makes this display extremely exciting."

All things considered, the event was among the brightest and most energetic of its type ever witnessed.

"This was a Rosetta-Stone event that illuminates so many things -- literally," Vestrand said. "We were very fortunate to have all of the NASA and ground-based instruments seeing it at the same time. We had all the assets in place to collect a very detailed data set. These are data that astrophysicists will be looking at for a long time to come because we have a detailed record of the event as it unfolded."

Already the event, labeled GRB 130427A by astrophysicists, is testing some long-held assumptions about the nature of the universe. For example, scientists recorded energy levels for gamma rays that are higher than what some researchers thought theoretically possible. This revelation may require physicists to modify existing theories about radiation. No doubt, the data set could yield more surprises in the future, Vestrand said.

Welcome to SUV System Ltd!

SUV System Ltd is ISO 90012008 Certified electronics distributor with 10 years of experiences.

We have built up long term business relationship with about many companies which are stockers and authorized agents. we have a steady and reliable supply to meet customer's demands to the greatest extent .Confidently, we are able to lower your cost and support your business with our years of professional service.

SUV System Ltd is Electronic Components Distributor Supplies,Find Quality Electronic Components Supplies Products IC(Integrated Circuits),Connectors,Capacitor,Resistors,Diodes,Transistors,LED at Suvsystem.com. Sourcing Other Energy, Environment, Excess Inventory Products from Manufacturers and Suppliers at Suvsystem.com

Electronic Components distributor:http://www.suvsystem.com

Connectors Distributor:http://www.suvsystem.com/l/Connectors-1.html

IC Distributor:http://www.suvsystem.com/l/IC(Integrated-Circuits)-1.html

LED Distributor:http://www.suvsystem.com/l/LED-1.html

Capacitor Distributor:http://www.suvsystem.com/l/Capacitor-1.html

Transistor Distributor:http://www.suvsystem.com/l/Transistors-1.html

Resistor Distributor:http://www.suvsystem.com/l/Resistors-1.html

Diode Distributor:http://www.suvsystem.com/l/Diodes-1.html

SUV System Ltd insists on the managing faith ofsincereness,speciality,foresight, win-win,so we build up stable-relationship customers located all over the world, including the States, Europe, Argentina, UAE, Malaysia, Australia,and India etc

we are focus on the following fields,and hope we can help you.

IR Diodes LITTELFUSE Diodes Civil IC YAGEO Resistors Voltage Regulators Transistors Microchip IC Diodes BB IC INTERSIL IC IC(Integrated Circuits) AD IC Fleld Effect Transistors Freescale Semiconductor Thick Film Resistors About US ON Diodes MAXIM IC LED IDT IC AVX Resistors ROHM Resistors Zener Diodes Renesas parts IC DIODES Transistors Transistors Infineon Technologies Transistors Capacitor LED part Kingbrigt LED Chip Ferrite Beads Fairchild Semiconductor Transistors Cypress IC High Precision Resistors Metal Can Packages Transistors chip Filter saws ST Transistors TI IC Resistor Arrays Resistor Networks Xilinx IC
http://www.suvsystem.com/a/7276.aspx