A group of astronomers were awestruck by the brightest flash of light ever observed, which was likely triggered by the formation of a black hole.
The telescopes of astronomers detected what is now regarded to be the brightest flash of light ever witnessed on October 9.
An hour after GRB 221009A was originally discovered, the Swift X-Ray Telescope captured its afterglow. NASA released the photograph.
According to researchers, the flash of light lasted hundreds of seconds and was a blast of gamma rays created by a star that collapsed and converted into a black hole.
Notably, when a star explodes in a supernova, it can collapse into a black hole, and the explosion’s remaining materials forms an accretion disk surrounding the black hole.
This stuff finally falls into the black hole, causing an enormous energy jet to be expelled at speeds close to the speed of light. Certain examples of this gamma-ray jet have attained 99.99% of the speed of light.
In addition, the burst of light released photons with a record-breaking 18 teraelectronvolts of energy, which is 18 followed by 12 zeros.
Reports indicate that long-wave radio communications in Earth’s ionosphere were disrupted as a result of the flash’s intensity. Astrophysicist Brendan O’Connor recently stated to the AFP that he observed the event last Friday and determined that it occurred 2.4 billion light years away from Earth.
“It’s really breaking records, both in the amount of photons, and the energy of the photons that are reaching us. Something this bright, this nearby, is really a once-in-a-century event.
In a few seconds, gamma-ray bursts unleash the same amount of energy that the Sun releases throughout its entire lifetime, and this event is the brightest gamma-ray burst ever observed, according to O’Connor.
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The source of the news is phys.org.