The Arthur C. Clarke Gamma Ray Burst

Larry Sessions, a columnist for Earth & Sky, has suggested in his blog that the gamma-ray event whose radiation reached us a few hours before Arthur C. Clarke died, and which occurred 7.5 billion years ago, be named the Clarke Event. The outburst, which produced enough visible light to render it a naked-eye object across half the universe, is officially designated GRB 080319B. What more fitting tribute to Clarke than to associate his name with the greatest bang since the big one? Sessions suggests writing to any astronomers, heads of physics departments, or planetarium operators you know and talking up the proposal.

Comments

Re:no, don't care for it

[MightyMartian]

How does that follow? Astronomical bodies get named after famous people or scientists frequently. No one is saying Clarke caused it (after all, it did happen over seven billion years ago), but it's a way of recognizing one of the most influential science/sci-fi writers who has ever lived.

Re:MOD PARENT UP

[Anonymous Coward]

Repeating the libelous (and since retracted) fiction of British tabloids to insult a dead man is pretty low.

Do you also believe in Bat Boy?

The Objective is to Remember

[moore.dustin]

With all due respect, should we not remember him by naming something after him that itself will be remembered? I mean really, this Gamma Ray Burst is not going to be a topic for many people in even a couple weeks, let alone several years from now. We remember Kennedy via the Kennedy Space Center, Hawking gets Hawking Radiation, Einstein/Galileo has some satellites and the examples are really endless here. Why not name something after him which will carry his namesake more actively throughout the future. Of course this is not the only thing that will bear his name, but out of all the possibilities people want to spend their effort on this one? I'd like to see that enthusiasm directed towards something better than getting a GRB event named after him. Cool? Maybe. Lasting? No.

Re:The Objective is to Remember

[JoeMerchant]

If this GRB is as rare as it appears to be, it will likely serve as a reference magnitude for other GRBs observed in the future (i.e., today's burst was the largest ever - 1.3x the magnitude of the Clarke Event observed in 2008, etc.)

As an aside, I'm surprised no comments (that I've read) follow this line of logic:

Of course Clarke's death didn't cause the burst, but wouldn't it be remarkable if somehow, even if by seeming coincidence, the burst caused his death?

Re:The Objective is to Remember

[doubletruncation]

I agree that it's not clear that this GRB will be that significant of an outlier after a decade or so of observations. Three of the four intrinsically brightest events ever observed occurred in the last 3 years and were discovered by Swift (050904, 061007 and 080319B which is this one). This one is also not an order of magnitude brighter (intrinsically) than any other GRB - more like a factor of 2 (the next brightest was 050904 which in turn was a factor of ~2 brighter than the third most luminous GRB, see figure 4 in http://arxiv.org/abs/0803.3215 ). Certainly it's a really cool event, neat to think that you could have seen something 7 billion light years away with the naked eye, but I'd be surprised if we don't see even more luminous ones in the next few decades.

An alternative proposal

[hcdejong]

How about making sure Clarke Orbit becomes the common name for the geostationary orbit?

Re:Minor correction...

[jmagar.com]

Only a comment as well crafted as that one could draw a lurker like me. Well done!