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Hypernova Erupts as Global Telescopes Scramble
An anonymous reader writes "The remarkable Robotic Optical Transient Search Experiment [ROTSE] telescopes have tracked a 2 billion year old hypernova, from which an intense gamma ray burst reached earth on March 29. From Carl Akerlof, the ROTSE investigator: "The optical brightness of this gamma ray burst is about 100 times more intense than anything we've ever seen before." To underscore how the sun never rises on this automated telescope network, the observations switched rapidly from New South Wales in Australia back to Fort Davis, Texas, over a 12 hour burnout of the collapsing black hole."
Which kind of raises the question, why not a meganova, or a giganova?
jeez, silly names...
iRooster, the Mac OS X a
yeah, anyway... "During the first minute after the explosion it emitted energy at a rate more than a million times the combined output of all the stars in the Milky Way" This is completely unimaginable. I just wonder: has anything on this scale has been observed before?
Libertarian: label used by embarrassed Republicans, longing to be open about their greed, drug use and porn collections.
Hide in your basesment and get out your tinfoil hat! ...I'm glad to see many of you are already prepared.
And it was just about to retire the next day. 2 billion years of loyal service as a hypernova, and it erupts just like that.
Quoted a co-worker, "It's what we call in the nova business retirony."
-Look lively. LOOK LIVELY!!! --Mr. Shmallow
The remarkable Robotic Optical Transient Search Experiment [ROTSE] telescopes have tracked a 2 billion year old hypernova, from which an intense gamma ray burst reached earth on March 29.
Wonderful...an intense gamma ray burst. I wonder how much this increases my chances of getting cancer...?
_________
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"Billlllyuns and billlllyuns of years ago..."
And the brethren went away edified.
This happened 2 Billion years ago.
Slow news day?
From Carl Akerlof, the ROTSE investigator: "The optical brightness of this gamma ray burst is about 100 times more intense than anything we've ever seen before."
And five minutes later, after someone accidentally spilled coffee on Dr. Akerlof, angering him, he was quoted as saying... wait for it... wait for it... all together now...
HULK SMASH!!!
Let the painfully immature gamma ray jokes begin.
Let's just hope we don't get one of these anywhere much closer than this, cause otherwise everyone will have a really good sun tan very fast!
Daniel
Carpe Diem
Hilarious, the little animated skymap showing the
burst becoming the brightest thing in the sky was
produced by EGRET... Which ceased operations several
years ago. Whatever they are showing in that figure,
it can't be real data.
Well, no. To quote the summary: From Carl Akerlof, the ROTSE investigator: "The optical brightness of this gamma ray burst is about 100 times more intense than anything we've ever seen before."
So, nothing more than 1% of this intensity has been seen before.
"Software is too expensive to build cheaply"
** KARMA WHORE MODE: OFF **
Hypernova Blast:
Global Chase Ensues
based on U. Michigan release
Two billion years ago, in a far-away galaxy, a giant star exploded, releasing almost unbelievable amounts of energy as it collapsed to a black hole. The light from that explosion finally reached Earth at 6:37 a.m. EST on March 29, igniting a frenzy of activity among astronomers worldwide. This phenomenon has been called a hypernova, playing on the name of the supernova events that mark the violent end of massive stars.
With two telescopes separated by about 110 degrees longitude, the Robotic Optical Transient Search Experiment (ROTSE) will have one of the most continuous records of this explosion.
The changing intensity of a gamma-ray burst. On the left is an image of the gamma ray sky showing the burst becoming the brightest object. On the right is a plot of the changing brightness with time. The first gamma-ray burst was seen in the year 1967 (although it was not reported to the world until 1973) by satellite-borne detectors intended to look for violations of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Credit: BATSE
"The optical brightness of this gamma ray burst is about 100 times more intense than anything we've ever seen before. It's also much closer to us than all other observed bursts so we can study it in considerably more detail," said Carl W. Akerlof, an astrophysicist in the Physics Department at the University of Michigan.
Contrary to visible light, gamma rays are non-thermal meaning that they are not produced in hot celestial bodies like the sun. Gamma rays occur in exceptional circumstances such as in the aftermath of a stellar explosion, in the vicinity of black holes, or at the core of active galaxies.
Just recently, the ROTSE group commissioned two optical telescopes in Australia and Texas and were waiting for the first opportunities to use the new equipment. The burst was promptly detected by NASA's Earth orbiting High-Energy Transient Explorer (HETE-2) but human intervention was required to find the exact location.
Despite sporadic clouds and rainstorms in Australia, the ROTSE instrument at Siding Spring Observatory in northern New South Wales was able to record the decaying light from the blast. Twelve hours later, the second ROTSE telescope in Fort Davis, Texas was picking up the job of monitoring this spectacular explosion.
"During the first minute after the explosion it emitted energy at a rate more than a million times the combined output of all the stars in the Milky Way. If you concentrated all the energy that the sun will put out over its entire 9 billion-year life into a tenth of a second, then you would have some idea of the brightness," said Michael Ashley, faculty member in the astrophysics and optics department at the University of New South Wales and a member of the ROTSE team.
Given that the history of astronomy goes back centuries, observations in the gamma spectrum are really among the newest areas in celestial research. The high-energy light is swallowed by the earth's atmosphere yet the light cannot be captured with conventional lenses or mirrors. Special detectors in satellites and high altitude research rockets register gamma rays with energies of up to around ten billion electron volts.
Gamma rays occur in exceptional circumstances such as in the aftermath of a stellar explosion, in the vicinity of black holes, or at the core of active galaxies. Credit: NASA
Fortunately for life on earth, a gamma particle from the universe does not penetrate to the earth's surface, but if it flies past an atomic nucleus within the earth's atmosphere, the gamma particle can transform itself into an electron and its (positive) antiparticle, a positron. During its journey through the air, this pair comes across more atomic nuclei and a gamma quantum is generated which then once again hits atomic nuclei. Thus, a single cosmic gamma particle creates roughly a thousand secondar
"To underscore how the sun never rises on this automated telescope network, the observations switched rapidly from New South Wales in Australia back to Fort Davis, Texas..."
yeah, but if it were september would we even know it happened?
IANAA but, it seems that even if you always have someone looking into the night sky, it's only half of the sky - you cant see the side where the sun is untill later in the year.
now if we could somehow drop a satellite telescope behind in orbit around the sun about 6 months behind us and another 3 months behind (for line of sight comms) we could get a more complete picture of our neiborhood year round.
or...i could be completly ignorant.
The first of the four images from hubble of the event is about 2 light years across I figure the last of the 4 images they say is 6 light years across.
Problem is this only happened in March so how did it expand 4 light years in like a few months and how exactly did that expansion happen when some how the burst just reached us over that distance.
Anyone see a problem here? It expands 4 light years in size in just a few months yet some how the light manages to travel 2 billion light years.
I can't see how this could have happened, Iv'e been thinking about it since it was posted as APOD picture of the day a few days ago.
Expansion faster then the speed of light? It don't make sence to me.
Bad form to reply to my own post but what do I know? I should have googled gamma particles first before posting.
Turns out that references to gamma particles really are used quite frequently, and sometime interchangably within the same context too. Much more frequently than I would have thought.
Main Entry: tomato
Pronunciation: t&-'mA-(")tO; chiefly British, eastern New England, northeastern Virginia, and sometimes elsewhere in cultivated speech -'m[a']- or -'mä-; chiefly Northern -'ma-
Article just says it was an University of Michigan release. No author listed, so maybe De Broglie wrote it from beyond the grave.
... Nova...
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Thanks! just what I needed. Humour at 1 in the morning.
get it, rotc vs. rotse
rimshot!
How about ananova...no wait that's a website...
If Mr. Edison had thought smarter he wouldn't sweat as much. --Nikola Tesla
"If you concentrated all the energy that the sun will put out over its entire 9 billion-year life into a tenth of a second, then you would have some idea of the brightness."
The key phrase here is then you would have some idea. Frankly, there is a point in astronomy and astrophysics where things get so big, and so fast, and so bright, that the only idea that remains in one's brain when trying to imagine such phenomena is a white light with a big hand reaching into it. The example above is classic: first I have to imagine 9 billion years (good luck, I can't even remember what happened yesterday) and then I have to imagine a tenth of a second, which is like a total brain fart. And then, and only then, would I have some idea of the brightness. Well, I guess that I would have some idea if my head hadn't imploded while trying to imagine that nanofart called a "tenth of a second." Geezus.
The Death Penalty: Killing people to show others that killing people is wrong.
Fortunately, they didn't call their telescope network the Global Optical Automatic Transient Search Experiment, whose headquarter are in the Christmas Islands.
"Two billion years ago, in a far-away galaxy, a giant star exploded."
The death of star. Death Star.
I predict they might be seeing a second one of these explosions any time soon...
Nevermind.
Is the quoted speaker the Rotse man? Rotse.cx?
Tim
Omnia vestra castrorum habetur nobis.
Not offtopic, just think about the name they chose for their telescope network!
Would it increase your changes of getting cancer? Shields that reduce gamma ray intensity by 50% include 1cm (0.4 inches) of lead, 6cm (2.4 inches) of concrete or 9cm (3.6 inches) of packed dirt. On the good side, gamma radiation is only as harmful as x-ray or beta particles. This NASA site however says that most gamma radiation is absorbed by the atmosphere, which is why you need balloons or sattelites to really see gamma rays.
http://www.santacruzbynight.com/index.shtml Santa Cruz By Night Vampire Larp
I've been staring at this thing for three days now. It's in a filed crowed with galaxies of every shape.
/. blog a few days ago.
I wrote about it in my
He must be so proud. I'm sure that "the whole world is watching Australia!", and that this event will "finally put Australia on the map!"...
This Gamma Ray Burst news got to amateur astronomers within hours of its detection on 29th of March. It was also the first GRB to be observed visually as can be seen from AAVSO's report. The observers were deep-sky enthuasts from Finland.The equipment used was amateur level telescopes and eyeballs.
So they used the new ROTSE telescope. Has anyone heard of the GOATSE telescope? Yeah it's exclusively used for peering into massive black holes.
Is it an erupting hypernova?
or
Is it aliens shooting at us?
"gamma ray burst is about 100 times more intense than anything we've ever seen before", Yep aliens for sure.
Mouse powered Chips, Open source Processors and Lego
'Contrary to visible light, gamma rays are non-thermal meaning that they are not produced in hot celestial bodies like the sun. Gamma rays occur in exceptional circumstances such as in the aftermath of a stellar explosion, in the vicinity of black holes, or at the core of active galaxies'
This is of course not true - gamma rays are produced in many places, among other things by Radium, if my memory serves me. And the Sun does indeed produce gamma rays are essentially just high energy photons, just like visible light (and radio waves, for that matter) with 'high energy'. Electromagnetic radiation is quantified in 'packets' called photons, and it is mostly a metter of taste whether you call them radio waves, microwaves, light, X-rays or gamma rays. There's an upper for gamma photons by the way (sort of): a photon with very high energy will tend to 'split' and form a pair consisting of an electron and a positron, which then annihilate in a burst of photons.
Yup. Gamma rays are high-energy photons. Photons are particles. In fact, all particles are waves, and all waves are quantized in particles, so you could call an electron an "electron wave-packet", a photon a "light particle", etc... Plus the term "gamma rays" was coined when they discovered radioactivity, at which point they knew very little about all this, so alpha rays and beta rays (which are most definitely particles - helium nuclei and electrons, respecitvely) are also called "rays".
Daniel
Carpe Diem
Never trust a sane puppeteer
A vacuum is a hell of a lot better than some of the stuff that nature replaces it with. - Tennessee Williams
It mentioned the infamous rotse.cx site!
Suddenly, i dont want to know about the "12 hour burnout of the collapsing black hole".
"The optical brightness of this gamma ray burst is about 100 times more intense than anything we've ever seen before."
Aren't gamma rays by definition not optical (i.e. not in the visible spectrum)?
the coolest club on
There are absolutely massive numbers involved that it's difficult to realistically comprehend them let alone compare them meaningfully.
Co-incidentally, I worked out for someone tonight that if the Sun and the Earth were 5 centimetres apart (that's a couple of inches), then the Andromeda galaxy would be roughly 6.7 million kilometres down the road. (About 4 million miles.) And Andromeda's one of the closest of what was most recently estimated to be around 80 billion galaxies.
Rotse. I swear every and any word/acronym/setofcharacters containing o*tse or some form of it has, in my mind, been ruined forever. My first day at slashdot will continue haunt me to the end of my days.
Thank you.
Note: This sig contains nine S's, nine I's and five O's which... means absolutely nothing.
I'd suggest they register a .cx domain name instead of .net ...
I suggest we remove that galaxy from our list of places to go to when we have FTL - I doubt there is much life left after an event like this happens in your galaxy.
Even give 2 billion years to recover, I'll bet that galaxy is just a bit thin on life.
www.eFax.com are spammers
Quoth the article:
Fortunately for life on earth, a gamma particle from the universe does not penetrate to the earth's surface, but if it flies past an atomic nucleus within the earth's atmosphere, the gamma particle can transform itself into an electron and its (positive) antiparticle, a positron.
Now, im in an entry level college physics course right now, and we're doing electromagentic stuff, and we jsut learned that gamma radiation is just that--ionising radiation. EM wave, no particle. What's the article talking about? Something I havent learned yet?
If you can't see the value in jet powered ants you should turn in your nerd card. - Dunbal (464142)
And to think, I only just duct taped up my house last month. Whew!
that explains why I turn slightly green every time I get angry, now.
"now if we could somehow drop a satellite telescope behind in orbit around the sun about 6 months behind us..."
From what I understand, there's already a spaceship in that precise location.
Karma: NaN
I don't care about cancer ... does this increase my chances of getting superpowers? Then I'd just have to find a tailor who can provide rip-proof purple pants ....
Since when does 10 times 100 get 10000? More like 1000.
Bill - aka taniwha
--
Leave others their otherness. -- Aratak
You know, there needs to be a new moderation category... grim.
The parent is the kind of post that normally just deserves an off topic mod, but in *this* context... perhaps funny is the best available, but grim is what would be appropriate. Gallows humor.
You can't do anything about the problem, all you can do is laugh. At jokes that aren't funny.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Lisa: "But you have recruiting ads on TV. Why do you need subliminal messages?"
Navy guy: "It's a three-pronged attack. Subliminal, liminal, and superliminal."
Lisa: "Superliminal?"
Navy Guy: "I'll show you. Hey you! Join the navy!"
Lenny and Carl: "Uh, yeah, alright." "I'm in."
25 or 30 years ago, when Pulsars were a relatively new phenomenon, I attended a presentation at the old McLaughlin Planetarium, where the presenter gave a very memorable presentation. He was explaining how the Crab Nebula could contain a pulsar, without us ever noticing.
He projected a flashing light on to the simulcrm of the sky. And he had a tone generator generating ticks in synch with the flashing light. Then he turned up the frequency of the flashes. The flashes all blended into one continuous light long before the ticks became indistinguishable. My recollection was that it took about three times the frequency before the ticks blended together. Okay -- it made an impression on me.
i spent 5 minutes composing my pedantic comment about how the quote is ' ... the sun never SETS ... ' (on the British Empire)
then i realized: it's astronomy !!! it happens at night !!!
help me ... i need a life
+1 fashionably cynical
...SETI@home reports that they've finally gotten an intelligible signal from that area of the sky. The message came in just before the nova.
After decoding, it said, "Hey, Zborno, what's this button do?"
If you put them at the Lagrange points, some of them will shoot off rapidly. They're not all stable, you know.
and a couple super computers and stuck em where the sun don't shine. haha
pretty neat, outrunning the sunrise every night.
yuou could say this system is faster than the speed of light, but you'd really only be faster than the speed of the earth's rotation.
because I have been enjoined by this Holy Office to abandon the false opinion which maintains that the Sun is the centre
Perhaps this is some alien species' way of saying "Hey! We're over here!!!". Generating a great big blast of light without destroying the entire galaxy. What a great (and far advanced) idea!
Now let's hope they aren't sending us a message in Morse code. Hehe..
blargle flargle argle?
Get within 500 light years of that sucker ...
oh well sunscreen spf 2*28