Massive explosion found in deep space

 Houston Chronicle:

Astronomers recently discovered the "BOAT," or the brightest of all time: a cosmic explosion they say may possibly be the most powerful ever recorded. Scientists believe the record-breaking gamma-ray burst was likely triggered by a massive supernova explosion that gave birth to a black hole approximately 2.4 billion light-years away from Earth in the direction of the constellation Sagitta.

The celestial event, dubbed GRB 221009A, was first detected on the morning of Oct. 9 by multiple X-ray and gamma-ray space telescopes, including NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space telescope, Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, and the Wind spacecraft, according to a NOIRLab news release. Upon its discovery, two independent teams of astronomers set out to obtain data on the historic blast. The first observation used the FLAMINGOS-2 imaging spectograph, while the second used the Gemini Multi-Object Spectograph.

"The exceptionally long GRB 221009A is the brightest [gamma-ray burst] ever recorded and its afterglow is smashing all records at all wavelengths," said Brendan O'Connor, a researcher with the University of Maryland and George Washington University and one of the teams's leaders, in a NOIRLab release. "Because this burst is so bright and also nearby, we think this is a once-in-a-century opportunity to address some of the most fundamental questions regarding these explosions, from the formation of black holes to tests of dark matter models."
...

There is an artist's rendition of the event as well as a picture giving the location of the exploding planet. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

Washington Post: Some Democrats eye adding more justices to the Supreme Court to change its ideological bent The once-remote idea has gained the attention of liberals angered by the GOP push to remake the federal courts. Probably the easy way to defeat this court-packing scheme is for Trump to propose doing the same thing now.  It would lead to Democrat denunciations and claims that it would be wrong, thereby blowing up any attempt by them in the unfortunate event of Democrats winning a presidential election.
Read more

29 % of companies say they are unlikely to keep insurance after Obamacare

Conn Carroll: A new survey of 368 midsize to large companies found that 29% of them are considering terminating their active employee health care plans when Obamacare is full implemented in 2014. Only 71% of employers surveyed said they did not expect to drop their health coverage, while 20% said they did not know and 9% said they were planning to exit. The latest survey, conducted by Towers Watson, echoes an ealier survey by McKinsey & Co. finding that 30% of private-sector employers were planning to drop their employee health insurance coverage by 2014. When the Congressional Budget Office crunched Obamacare's spending numbers, they estimated that only 7% of employees currently covered by employer-sponsored plans would lose their plans. ... This means the cost of the health care fiasco will be hundreds of billions more than estimated by the CBO and Congressional Democrat. It is also clear that Obama's pledge that you could keep your health care plan if you wanted t
Read more

Bin Laden's concern about Zarqawi's remains

James Robbins: ... Bin Laden suggests that President Bush should allow Zarqawi’s body to be returned to his family in Jordan, but this is a matter that is up to the Jordanian government, which so far has not shown much interest in facilitating a homecoming. Bin Laden mocks King Abdullah II, calling him a Coalition minion, and asking “w hat scares you about Abu Musab after he’s dead? You know that his funeral, if allowed to happen, would be a huge funeral showing the extent of sympathy with the mujahedin.” A large crowd would definitely turn out, though most people would be on hand to demonstrate their anger and disgust. Last November’s hotel bombings in Amman , masterminded by Zarqawi, are still fresh in people’s memory, and mentioning them to Jordanians has the same visceral impact as memory of the 9/11 attacks does here. Jordan has adopted a zero-tolerance policy towards those who choose to mourn the country’s least favorite son, and four opposition members of parliament who paid con
Read more