New Cosmic Blast Findings

This topic is "way beyond" my knowledge but thought it would be interesting for those members keyed in on this research.

Robotic telescope unravels mystery of cosmic blasts

Scientists have used the world's largest robotic telescope to make the earliest-ever measurement of the optical polarisation* of a Gamma Ray Burst (GRB) just 203 seconds after the start of the cosmic explosion. This finding, which provides new insight into GRB physics, is published in Science today (15th March 2007).

The scientists from Liverpool John Moores University and colleagues in the UK, Italy, France and Slovenia used the Liverpool Telescope on the island of La Palma and its novel new polarimeter, RINGO, to perform the measurement following detection of the burst by NASA's Swift satellite.

Gamma Ray Bursts are the most instantaneously powerful explosions in the Universe and are identified as brief, intense and completely unpredictable flashes of high energy gamma rays on the sky. They are thought to be produced by the death throes of a massive star and signal the birth of a new black hole or neutron star (magnetar) and ejection of an ultra-high speed jet of plasma. Until now, the composition of the ejected material has remained a mystery and, in particular the importance of magnetic fields has been hotly debated by GRB scientists.

The Liverpool measurement was obtained nearly 100 times faster than any previously published optical polarisation measurement for a GRB afterglow and answers some fundamental questions about the presence of magnetic fields.

This is a really interesting article, great find. Hopefully one day we'll be able to tell how these Gamma Ray Bursts actually come to be.

yeah this stuff is amazing, im currently doing an astrophysics paper at university at the moment and its mind boggling..... highly recommend if you are fascinated in this subject

Since Gamma Ray Bursts are short in duration, measurement of the early stages of the burst are extremely difficult. The earlier the measurement the more science that can be gleaned from it.