A study explains how the biggest cosmic explosion of all time happened

On October 9, 2022, the telescopes around the world caught the brightest cosmic explosion of all time, a burst of gamma rays baptized “BOAT”so exceptional that the scientists they couldn’t explain it.

Now, an international team, led by the University of Washington, has published an article on Wednesday in the journal Science Advances in which it explains why this burst, which was dubbed the “Brightest of All Time” (BOAT) was so dazzling.

Gamma-ray bursts are the most violent and energetic explosions in the universe, capable of releasing the same amount of energy in a few seconds as the Sun throughout its lifetime.

On October 9, 2022, the outburst GRB 221009A occurred after the collapse of a very massive star and the subsequent birth of a black hole. all of this caused an immensely bright flash of gamma rays that was followed by a slow glow of light.

To analyze it, the team examined a large amount of multi-wavelength data from BOAT and came to a conclusion: The initial explosion (GRB 221009A) headed straight for Earth, carrying an unusually large amount of stellar material with it.

The researchers found that the jet from GRB 221009A had a narrow core. “with broad and drooping wings”a feature that distinguished it from the types of jets seen in gamma-ray bursts produced by other cataclysms.

That feature could also explain why scientists continued to see GRB 221009A’s multi-wavelength glow for months after the explosion, the study concludes.

This finding supposes “a huge step forward in our understanding of gamma-ray bursts and demonstrates that the most extreme bursts do not obey the standard physics assumed for ordinary gamma-ray bursts,” explains Brendan O’Connor, a graduate student at the University of Washington and lead author of the study.

O’Connor’s team used one of the two telescopes at the Gemini Observatory in southern Chile to observe the event last October.

“GRB 221009A could be the Rosetta stone equivalent of long GRBs, forcing us to revise our standard theories of how relativistic outflows form in collapsing massive stars”O’Connor opines.

The findings will fuel future studies of gamma-ray bursts and encourage scientists to create simulations of the structures of gamma-ray burst jets.

“For a long time we thought that the jets were shaped like ice cream cones,” says Alexander van der Horst, professor of physics at the University of Washington and co-author of the study.

“However, some gamma-ray bursts from recent years, and in particular the work presented here, show that we need more complex models and detailed computer simulations of gamma-ray burst jets.”he concludes.

Source: EFE