Mathematics – Logic
Scientific paper
Oct 2000
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2000eso..pres...20.&link_type=abstract
ESO Press Release, 10/2000
Mathematics
Logic
Scientific paper
ESO Telescopes Observe "Lightning" in the Young Universe
Summary
Observations with telescopes at the ESO La Silla and Paranal observatories (Chile) have enabled an international team of astronomers [1] to measure the distance of a "gamma-ray burst", an extremely violent, cosmic explosion of still unknown physical origin.
It turns out to be the most remote gamma-ray burst ever observed . The exceedingly powerful flash of light from this event was emitted when the Universe was very young, less than about 1,500 million years old, or only 10% of its present age. Travelling with the speed of light (300,000 km/sec) during 11,000 million years or more, the signal finally reached the Earth on January 31, 2000.
The brightness of the exploding object was enormous, at least 1,000,000,000,000 times that of our Sun, or thousands of times that of the explosion of a single, heavy star (a "supernova").
The ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT) was also involved in trail-blazing observations of another gamma-ray burst in May 1999, cf. ESO PR 08/99.
PR Photo 28a/00 : Sky field near GRB 000131 . PR Photo 28b/00 : The fading optical counterpart of GRB 000131 . PR Photo 28c/00 : VLT spectrum of GRB 000131 . What are Gamma-Ray Bursts?
One of the currently most active fields of astrophysics is the study of the mysterious events known as "gamma-ray bursts" . They were first detected in the late 1960's by instruments on orbiting satellites. These short flashes of energetic gamma-rays last from less than a second to several minutes.
Despite much effort, it is only within the last few years that it has become possible to locate the sites of some of these events (e.g. with the Beppo-Sax satellite ). Since the beginning of 1997, astronomers have identified about twenty optical sources in the sky that are associated with gamma-ray bursts.
They have been found to be situated at extremely large (i.e., "cosmological") distances. This implies that the energy release during a gamma-ray burst within a few seconds is larger than that of the Sun during its entire life time (about 10,000 million years). "Gamma-ray bursts" are in fact by far the most powerful events since the Big Bang that are known in the Universe.
While there are indications that gamma-ray bursts originate in star-forming regions within distant galaxies, the nature of such explosions remains a puzzle. Recent observations with large telescopes, e.g. the measurement of the degree of polarization of light from a gamma-ray burst in May 1999 with the VLT ( ESO PR 08/99), are now beginning to cast some light on this long-standing mystery. The afterglow of GRB 000131
ESO PR Photo 28a/00
ESO PR Photo 28a/00
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ESO PR Photo 28b/00
ESO PR Photo 28b/00
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Caption : PR Photo 28a/00 is a colour composite image of the sky field around the position of the gamma-ray burst GRB 000131 that was detected on January 31, 2000. It is based on images obtained with the ESO Very Large Telescope at Paranal. The object is indicated with an arrow, near a rather bright star (magnitude 9, i.e., over 1 million times brighter than the faintest objects visible on this photo). This and other bright objects in the field are responsible for various unavoidable imaging effects, caused by optical reflections (ring-shaped "ghost images", e.g. to the left of the brightest star) and detector saturation effects (horizontal and vertical straight lines and coloured "coronae" at the bright objects, and areas of "bleeding", e.g. below the bright star). PR Photo 28b/00 shows the rapid fading of the optical counterpart of GRB 000131 (slightly left of the centre), by means of exposures with the VLT on February 4 (upper left), 6 (upper right), 8 (lower left) and March 5 (lower right). It is no longer visible on the last photo. Technical information about these photos is available below.
A gamma-ray burst was detected on January 31, 2000, by an international network of satellites ( Ulysses , NEAR and Konus ) via the InterPlanetary Network (IPN) [2]. It was designated GRB 000131 according to the date of the event. From geometric triangulation by means of the measured, exact arrival times of the signal at the individual satellites, it was possible to determine the direction from which the burst came. It was found to be from a point within a comparatively small sky area (about 50 arcmin 2 or 1/10 of the apparent size of the Moon), just inside the border of the southern constellation Carina (The Keel).
Follow-up observations were undertaken by a group of European astronomers [1] with the ESO Very Large Telescope at the Paranal Observatory. A comparison of several exposures with the FORS1 multi-mode instrument at the 8.2-m VLT ANTU telescope during the nights of February 3-4 and 5-6 revealed a faint, point-like object that was fading rapidly - this was identified as the optical counterpart of the gamma-ray burst (the "afterglow"). On the second night, the R-magnitude (brightness) was found to be only 24.4, or 30 million times fainter than visible with the unaided eye in a dark sky.
It was also possible to observe it with a camera at the 1.54-m Danish Telescope at the La Silla Observatory , albeit only in a near-infrared band and with a 1-hour exposure. Additional observations were made on February 8 with the SOFI multi-mode instrument at the ESO 3.58-m New Technology Telescope (NTT) at La Silla. The observations were performed partly by the astronomers from the group, partly in "service mode" by ESO staff at La Silla and Paranal.
The observations showed that the light from the afterglow was very red, without blue and green light. This indicated a comparatively large distance and, assuming that the light from the explosion would originally have had the same colour (spectral distribution) as that of optical counterparts of other observed gamma-ray bursts, a photometric redshift of 4.35 to 4.70 was deduced [3]. A spectrum of GRB 000131
ESO PR Photo 28c/00
ESO PR Photo 28c/00
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Caption : PR Photo 28c/00 shows the spectrum of the afterglow of GRB 000131 , obtained during a 3-hr exposure with the FORS1 multi-mode instrument at VLT ANTU on February 8, 2000. The "Lyman-alpha break" at wavelength 670.1 nm is indicated. Technical information about this photo is available below.
An accurate measurement of the redshift - hence the distance - requires spectroscopic observations. A spectrum of GRB 000131 was therefore obtained on February 8, 2000, cf. PR Photo 28c/00 . At this time, the brightness had decreased further and the object had become so faint (R-magnitude 25.3) that a total of 3 hours of exposure time was necessary with VLT ANTU + FORS1 [4]. Still, this spectrum is quite "noisy".
The deduced photometric redshift of GRB 000131 predicts that a "break" will be seen in the red region of the spectrum, at a wavelength somewhere between 650 and 700 nm. This break is caused by the strong absorption of light in intergalactic hydrogen clouds along the line of sight. The effect is known as the "Lyman-alpha forest" and is observed in all remote objects [5].
As PR Photo 28c/00 shows, such a break was indeed found at wavelength 670.1 nm. Virtually all light at shorter wavelengths from the optical counterpart of GRB 000131 is absorbed by intervening hydrogen clouds. From the rest wavelength of the Lyman-alpha break (121.6 nm), the redshift of GRB 000131 is then determined as 4.50, corresponding to a travel time of more than 90% of the age of the Universe . The most distant gamma-ray burst so far
The measured redshift of 4.50 makes GRB 000131 the most distant gamma-ray burst known (the previous, spectroscopically confirmed record was 3.42). Assuming an age of the Universe of the order of 12 - 14,000 million years, the look-back time indicates that the explosion took place around the time our own galaxy, the Milky
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