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Category: cosmology – Page 261

A gamma ray burst — possibly the brightest of all time — sweeps over Earth

In a breathless press release, NASA emphasized that their detectors all over the planet picked up on this, including NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, and the Wind spacecraft.

Gamma-ray bursts are some of the most powerful releases of energy in the universe. Their causes may vary slightly, but typically relate to black holes. Some may be caused when merging neutron stars create a black hole, or when a neutron star and a black hole merge. Because they are so energetic, even a gamma-ray burst that originates on the other side of the universe will often be detectable by astronomers on Earth.

It’s the BOAT: Astronomers observe “brightest of all time” gamma-ray burst

On the morning of October 9, multiple space-based detectors picked up a powerful gamma-ray burst (GRB) passing through our solar system, sending astronomers around the world scrambling to train their telescopes on that part of the sky to collect vital data on the event and its afterglow. Dubbed GRB 221009A, astronomers say the gamma-ray burst is the most powerful yet recorded and likely could be the “birth cry” of a new black hole. The event was promptly published in the Astronomer’s Telegram, and observations are still ongoing.

“In our research group, we’ve been referring to this burst as the ‘BOAT,’ or Brightest Of All Time, because when you look at the thousands of bursts gamma-ray telescopes have been detecting since the 1990s, this one stands apart,” said Jillian Rastinejad, a graduate student at Northwestern University. Rastinejad led one of two independent teams using the Gemini South telescope in Chile to study the event’s afterglow.

“This burst is much closer than typical GRBs, which is exciting because it allows us to detect many details that otherwise would be too faint to see,” said Roberta Pillera, a graduate student at the Polytechnic University of Bari, Italy, and member of the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) Collaboration. “But it’s also among the most energetic and luminous bursts ever seen regardless of distance, making it doubly exciting.”

Astronomers just spotted the most powerful flash of light ever seen

Astronomers just detected what may be the most powerful flash of light ever seen.

The so-called gamma-ray burst, the most energetic type of electromagnetic explosion known to exist in the universe, was first spotted by telescopes Sunday (Oct. 9).

Gamma-ray bursts, which were discovered accidentally by U.S. military satellites in the 1960s, are likely produced when giant stars explode at the ends of their lives before collapsing into black holes, or when ultradense stellar remnants known as neutron stars collide. Within seconds, these explosions unleash as much energy as the sun will emit during its entire 10-billion-year lifetime.

This is why quantum physicists suspect the Multiverse very likely exists

One of the most successful theories of 20th century science is cosmic inflation, which preceded and set up the hot Big Bang. W e also know how quantum fields generally work, and if inflation is a quantum field (which we strongly suspect it is), then there will always be more “still-inflating” space out there. Whenever and wherever inflation ends, you get a hot Big Bang. If inflation and quantum field theory are both correct, a Multiverse is a must.

When we look out at the Universe today, it simultaneously tells us two stories about itself. One of those stories is written on the face of what the Universe looks like today, and includes the stars and galaxies we have, how they’re clustered and how they move, and what ingredients they’re made of. This is a relatively straightforward story, and one that we’ve learned simply by observing the Universe we see.

But the other story is how the Universe came to be the way it is today, and that’s a story that requires a little more work to uncover. Sure, we can look at objects at great distances, and that tells us what the Universe was like in the distant past: when the light that’s arriving today was first emitted. But we need to combine that with our theories of the Universe — the laws of physics within the framework of the Big Bang — to interpret what occurred in the past. When we do that, we see extraordinary evidence that our hot Big Bang was preceded and set up by a prior phase: cosmic inflation. But in order for inflation to give us a Universe consistent with what we observe, there’s an unsettling appendage that comes along for the ride: a multiverse. Here’s why physicists overwhelmingly claim that a multiverse must exist.

The parallel worlds of quantum mechanics

There are many ways to interpret quantum mechanics, each weirder than the last. Theoretical physicist Sean Carroll says that the most plausible is the Many-Worlds theory.

The idea that an infinite number of parallel worlds could exist alongside our own is hard to wrap the mind around, but a version of this so-called Many Worlds theory could provide an answer to the controversial idea of quantum mechanics and its many different interpretations.

Bill Poirier, a professor of physics at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, proposed a theory that not only assumes parallel worlds exist, but also says their interaction can explain all the quantum mechanics “weirdness” in the observable universe.

What Drives Galaxies? The Milky Way’s Black Hole May Be the Key

On May 12, at nine simultaneous press conferences around the world, astrophysicists revealed the first image of the black hole at the heart of the Milky Way. At first, awesome though it was, the painstakingly produced image of the ring of light around our galaxy’s central pit of darkness seemed to merely prove what experts already expected: The Milky Way’s supermassive black hole exists, it is spinning, and it obeys Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity.

And yet, on closer inspection, things don’t quite stack up.

Huge, unusually powerful explosion in space just detected by scientists

An artist’s conception of a supernova explosion. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center / ESA / Hubble / L. Calcada In space, things frequently go boom. And recently, on Oct. 9, astronomers observed an extraordinarily colossal boom. NASA’s Swift Observatory, which is specifically designed to spot the most powerful known explosions in the universe today — called gamma-ray bursts — detected an extremely strong such burst.

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