Astronomers Shocked by Powerful Gamma-Ray Burst From Colliding Neutron Stars
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Astronomers Shocked By Powerful Gamma-Ray Burst From Colliding Neutron Stars - ExtremeTech:
The universe doesn't always cooperate. Science has puzzled over gamma-ray bursts since they were first detected in the 1960s, and just when we think we have the basics solidified, something happens to upend conventional wisdom. Astronomers have spent the last year studying a gamma-ray burst dubbed GRB 211211A. Based on the power of the burst, scientists expected to find evidence of a supernova but have identified the source as a merger between two neutron stars, known as a kilonova.
[...] "Astronomers have long believed that gamma-ray bursts fell into two categories: long-duration bursts from imploding stars and short-duration bursts from merging compact stellar objects," said lead author Chris Fryer, a researcher at Los Alamos National Laboratory. The discovery of a long-duration GRB associated with a neutron star merger paints a more complicated picture of these transient stellar events.
[...] "It was something we had never seen before," said study co-author Simone Dichiara, an astrophysicist at Penn State. Scientists created models to explain the hybrid event, and scanned the afterglow of GRB 211211A. Kilonovas produce a distinctive signal, brighter in infrared than visible light because of the dense neutron-rich matter that is ejected from the collision. The teams used this signal to confirm a collision as the cause of GRB 211211A rather than a supernova. This discovery will force a reevaluation of the mechanism behind GRBs and could affect how they are studied.
See also: Rare cosmic explosion blasts hole in established science
Journal Reference:
Troja, E., Fryer, C.L., O'Connor, B. et al. A nearby long gamma-ray burst from a merger of compact objects. Nature 612, 228-231 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05327-3
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