The James Webb Space Telescope has discovered what caused the most powerful cosmic gamma-ray burst, called BOAT. Energetic radiation was detected by scientists on October 9, 2022 from observatories located on land and in Earth’s orbit. The source of this stream is 2.4 billion years away from us.
According to recent research, this phenomenon is associated with the supernovae resulting from the death of giant stars. Typically, these events lead to the formation of the heaviest elements; however, researchers have not found any traces of such elements. This suggests that in some of these explosions, metals like gold and platinum are not formed at all, providing important insights into these processes.
When a massive star runs out of hydrogen, it collapses and then explodes. As a result, a neutron star or black hole is formed. Such events cause strong gamma rays. For the first time, similar signals were detected by military satellites in the 1960s by accident. Our technology has improved since then, but BOAT is at least 10 times more powerful than other explosives.
It was so bright that astronomers had to wait 6 months before observing it with the world’s most powerful telescope. The point is that the light from the BOAT covered any traces of Zeakhali, so the specialists could not have determined anything without testing.
It turned out that the supernova behind all this is of medium brightness. Perhaps the intensity of gamma rays is due to an unusually narrow relativistic flow created by charged particles moving at nearly the speed of light.
They also plan to study other supernovae with the Webb Telescope to try to determine what makes BOAT special.
The new paper was published in Nature Astronomy.
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