NASA Satellite Detects Record Gamma Ray Burst Explosion Halfway Across Universe

Recorded on March 19, 2008. This is stunning.



~full nasa release~





~source~

[edit on 20-3-2008 by hsur2112]

I have always been fascinated by GRB's. This one seems different. Possibly a Hypernova, but it is definitely visible, I have observed the visible light on my 20" scope. Impressive to say the least.

Just to add I have just observed the visible light with 50mm bino's, so I would say its on an order of 4 to 5 magnitude

I just read about this on the New York Times site.
www.nytimes.com...

Amazing. This event happened 7 billion years ago. Before our world and solar system even existed.
You actually saw it? The Times articles says they don't know of anyone who saw it live. Maybe send them an email...

reply to post by TheHorseChestnut

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That's fantastic! Now how often do you think that could happen and the fact that is was still visible, impressive. GRB's are not easy to detect. Swift is certainly paying off.

There's already a thread on this event here:

www.abovetopsecret.com...





I seriously doubt that HorseChestnut. The visible light peaked at 5th magnitude, but that was only fleetingly brief. Perhaps no more than 1 second.

Thanks chud, my news gathering is a bit slow.

What's scary is if one of these large GRBs happened near us, we would be in trouble:

- Scientist say that if a GRB happen in our HALF of the galaxy, it could cause mass extinctions on Earth.

- If one happened 1000 light years away (which is within the distance of most of the stars we can see with the naked eye), the effects on the Earth's surface would be like a nuclear explosion.

- If a large GRB occurs 100-500 light years away it would blow away our atmosphere and turn some of the Earth into molten rock.

If there were any life on planets within 5000 lightyears of that GRB, it probably became extinct the instant it was hit by the shock wave. Thank goodness the universe is huge.

I get alerts from the Swift site in my observatory, almost instantly. This event here occured little after midnight local time, and I was observing during this event. I slewed my scope to the coordinates and did observe the event. Incidently, it was observable more then 1 second. More like 48 minutes.

If you missed this historic burst from 7.5 billion years ago, don't worry you can still have a look at it.



Click here for details & bigger picture

reply to post by Enceladus

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That is so cool! Hearing about it is one thing, but seeing it like that is another. Were you able to oberseve it as thehorsechestnut did?

Fair enough, but why did you not say that in the first place?

Even so, and you'll have to forgive my skepticism here, your wording was very vague - Saying you had "just" seen it in a post made 2 days after the event which as you say lasted 48 minutes does not sound plausible!

The light curve shows that the greater than 6th magnitude part of the event only lasted for a few tens of seconds at most, with anything brighter than 5th magnitude only being visible for a handful of seconds (not much more than the "one second" which I mentioned before), so you would have had to be very quick off the mark to view the brightest part of the event!


source

But I agree that this might be possible if you were instantly notified as you claim. Thanks for posting.

[edit on 24-3-2008 by C.H.U.D.]

[edit on 24-3-2008 by C.H.U.D.]

reply to post by C.H.U.D.

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Well, this is not a position I care to be in. I'm not grandstanding, nor do I like to draw attention to myself, that was not the purpose. I have been here since 2005 and posted very few times. I have one major passion. That is astronomy. I have been observing the night sky regularly for about 30 years now. My 20" scope in my very dark site (outside Lewistown Montana) allows me to view objects down to 18th magnitude, sometimes a little more depending on atmospheric conditions. If you want to doubt me, fine. No skin off my back. Not here to prove anything.

Okay, I brought this up with some other people and really did not get an answer.

Maybe some of you can ponder this or comment on it.

If the big bang is a sphere, and this GRB happened half way across it, does that mean the earth is around the center of the big bang and this happened at the edge, or are we at the edge of the big bang and this GRB happened in the middle???

reply to post by TheHorseChestnut

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I can understand how you feel. I feel much the same way. I hope you'll forgive my skepticism, but this is a conspiracy forum, and we do get many dubious claims and people who have just started and think they know it all.

It's not that I doubt you, just the way you put what you said sent the alarm bells ringing.

All that aside, we need more people like you on here, and I hope you'll continue to contribute.

reply to post by ben91069

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haha, good question.. i guess none of them

[edit on 25-3-2008 by sty]

does anyone know what would be the energy involved in this explosion so that we can see what we see at 7.5 bil . years away ? Also , why 2 gama explosions in the same day- is this normal?

According to this article GRB's occur about once a day.



~source~


Between 1991 and 2000 approx. 2,704 bursts were detected by Compton Gamma Ray Observatory. Not of this magnitude I don't believe.

~source (outdated)~

reply to post by C.H.U.D.

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I appreciate your comments, and accept skepticism. Isn't what this forum is all about? I don't accept 90 percent of the topics posted here, but I understand this site as a great tool for the scientific community and discourse. I will continue to to post here, but right now I'm off for another 4 hours of heavenly observations, my target tonight is a variable star I have been observing for the past 8 months.

wow so that explosion happened 7 billion years ago? that is so frickin crazy.. makes me think of what the universe is like over on that side of the galaxy in todays world...