A massive burst of energy from outer space hit Earth
A ‘game-changing’ cosmic explosion that left experts ‘puzzling’ has been revealed by a team of scientists. This week, it was reported that Earth was hit by a massive burst of energy from over a billion light-years away. One scientist said the event – called GRB 211211A – was “unlike anything else we’ve seen before” and could change the way we understand how stars live and die. The event was detected in December 2021 by NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory and the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. The burst was significantly longer than average – something that could suggest it was produced by the collapse of a massive star into a supernova.
Now, according to the Daily Star, a NASA report said the explosion “shaked” experts’ understanding of the universe. A team of scientists said the explosion was caused by the collision of two super-dense stars. Regina Caputo, Swift Project Scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, said: “This result underscores the importance of collaboration between our missions and others to ensure multi-wavelength tracking of these types of phenomena.” Jillian Rastinejad, a graduate student at Northwestern University who led a team that studied the explosion, added: “Its gamma rays resemble those of explosions produced by the collapse of massive stars.” “Given that all other confirmed neutron star mergers we have observed have been accompanied by bursts that lasted less than two seconds, we had every reason to expect that this 50-second GRB was created by the collapse of a massive star. This event represents an exciting paradigm shift for gamma-ray burst astronomy.” Dr Matt Nicholl, Associate Professor at the University of Birmingham, continued: ‘We found that this event produced around 1,000 times the mass of Earth in very heavy elements. This supports the idea that these kilonovae are the main gold factories of the universe.”
By Paul Bumman
