Observing Gamma-ray Bursts in Distant Galaxiesby Kathy Chambers 21 Nov, 2013 in Science Communications
Star gazing seems especially good on a clear autumn night. From our back deck our amateur eyes scan the sky and its wonder. We first notice Venus, our closest planetary neighbor. A beautiful harvest moon rises over the hill, lighting up jet streams that crisscross the stars and planets. We see Orion, the bowl and handle of the Big Dipper, the Square of Pegasus, the vast Milky Way and we are fortunate to see an occasional falling star. We are in awe of the beauty of our night sky but it’s what we can’t see that is truly amazing. Spectacular explosions, which can’t be detected with the human eye, light up the gamma-ray sky about once a day. These explosions, called gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), are from distant galaxies hundreds of millions of light years away from earth and are thought to be triggered by supernovae or exploding stars. They release more energy than our sun will put out in a lifetime. GRBs have been an observational and theoretical challenge since they were first observed in the 60s. An ongoing international collaborative effort is working to gain a better understanding of the GRBs, how they are formed and how they affect our universe. Department of Energy scientists like Los Alamos National Laboratory’s (LANL) Brenda Dingus and Gus Sinnis are major players in the GMB research. They are both leaders of LANL’s Milagro Gamma-Ray Observatory and the follow-up highly sensitive High-Altitude Water Cherenkov Gamma-Ray Observatory (HAWC), a bi-national project between Mexico and the United States. These unconventional telescopes view the universe at very high energies rather than with visible light. You can learn... Related Topics: galaxies, gamma-ray burst, SciTech Connect, supernovae, telescopes Read more... |
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