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X-Ray Burst Temporarily Blinds NASA Satellite
RedEaredSlider writes with news that a recently-detected gamma-ray burst, originating roughly five billion light-years away, was powerful enough to temporarily blind NASA's Swift satellite. Phil Plait has an interesting writeup on the event. Quoting:
"Swift, normally easily able to handle the X-ray load from these explosions, was overwhelmed, and actually shut down temporarily when software detected that the cameras onboard might get damaged by the flood of light. That’s never happened before. The burst was so bright in X-rays it put other GRBs to shame: slamming Swift with 143,000 X-ray photons per second, it was 5 times brighter than the previous record holder, and nearly 200 times as bright as a typical GRB! Weirdly, it didn’t look out of the ordinary in visible light."
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No, it's odd that the x-ray burst wasn't accompanied by other frequencies. But not that odd.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
Last time I looked, "current" theory had GRBs coming from the poles, much like pulsars. This one just happened to be pointing (more or less) at us; we might not even be at the center of the beam.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
Blinded by the light
revved up like a deuce
another runner in the night
Blinded by the light
revved up like a deuce
another runner in the night
Blinded by the light
revved up like a deuce
another runner in the night
Madman drummers bummers
Indians in the summer with a teenage diplomat
In the dumps with the mumps as the adolescent pumps his way into his hat
With a boulder on my shoulder feelin kinda older
I tripped the merry-go-round
With this very unpleasin sneezin and wheezin
the calliope crashed to the ground
The calliope crashed to the ground
But she was
Blinded by the light
revved up like a deuce
runner in the night
Some silicone sister with a manager mister told me I go what it takes
She said "Ill turn you on sonny to something strong
play the song with the funky break"
And go-cart Mozart was checkin out the weather chart to see if it was safe outside
And little Early-Pearly came by in his curly-wurly and asked me if I needed a ride
Asked me if I needed a ride
But she was
Blinded by the light
revved up like a deuce
another runner in the night
Blinded by the light
She got down but she never got tired
Shes gonna make it through the night
Shes gonna make it through the night
But mama thats where the fun is
But mama thats where the fun is
Mama always told me not to look into the eyes of the sun
But mama thats where the fun is
Some brimstone baritone anticyclone rolling stone preacher from the east
Says "Dethrone the dictaphone hit it in its funny bone
thats where they expect it least"
And some new-mown chaperone was standin in the corner
watching the young girls dance
And some fresh-sown moonstone was messin with his frozen zone reminding him of romance
The calliope crashed to the ground
But she was
Blinded by the light
revved up like a deuce
another runner in the night
Madman drummers bummers Indians in the summer with a teenage diplomat
In the dumps with the mumps as the adolescent pumps his way into his hat
With a boulder on my shoulder feelin kinda older
I tripped the merry-go-round
With this very unpleasin sneezin and wheezin
the calliope crashed to the ground
Now Scott with a slingshot finially found a tender spot and throws his lover in the sand
And some bloodshot forget-me-not said daddys within earshot save the buckshot turn up the band
Some silicone sister with a manager mister told me I go what it takes
She said "Ill turn you on sonny to something strong"
It is not unusual for gamma-ray bursts to have X-ray afterglows, but no optical afterglows. About 95% of gamma-ray bursts have X-ray afterglows, but only about 60% have optical or infrared afterglows. The reason is that if there is a clump of dust between us and the gamma-ray burst the X-rays will go through, but the optical light will be scattered and never reach us.
Just because you are paranoid does not mean that no-one is out to get you.
The story is very sensationalist. All that happened is that the X-ray photons reached the detector faster than they could be recorded. Once the rate of photons slowed down the detector was fine again. This is a fairly normal occurrence for X-ray detectors. Roughly half of all of the gamma-ray bursts that Swift detects have X-ray emission higher than the XRT's coincidence limit.
Just because you are paranoid does not mean that no-one is out to get you.
Plenty of extraordinarily distant GRBs have been observed already and no evidence has been found yet of variation of EM propagation speed across the spectrum over long distances.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
Do we know this wasn't somewhat directed?
We assume that they are very directed... rather than assuming that 3.6 e26 grams of matter/antimatter are being annihilated every second (from a quick application of E=mc^2).
From Wikipedia's entry on Gamma Ray Bursts [emphasis added]:
Most observed GRBs are believed to be a narrow beam of intense radiation released during a supernova event, as a rapidly rotating, high-mass star collapses to form a black hole.
The other probable cause of GRB's, the merger or two neutron stars, would also rotate rapidly as the stars moved in more closely (conservation of angular momentum: think of a figure skater pulling in her arms). In both cases there exists a well-defined plane of rotation and emissions expelled along the axes.
>> Standing on head makes smile of frown, but rest of face also upside down.