quickdodgeŽ
09-12-2005, 03:27 PM
From news.bbc.co.uk:
Gamma ray bursts are intense flares of high-energy radiation that appear without warning from the cosmos.
They can release as much energy in a few minutes as the Sun will emit in its 10-billion-year lifetime.
The blast was observed by the Swift space telescope and by a number of ground-based observatories.
The latest, record gamma ray burst was detected on 4 September 2005 and lasted about three minutes. It probably marked the death of a massive star as it collapsed into a black hole.
It has a so-called "redshift" of 6.29, which translates to a distance of about 13 billion light years from Earth.
This burst smashes the old distance record by 500 million light years," said Dr Daniel Reichart of the University of North Carolina, who has been leading the measurement of its distance.
This is so cool. More energy than the sun is an assload of energy. Later, QD.
Gamma ray bursts are intense flares of high-energy radiation that appear without warning from the cosmos.
They can release as much energy in a few minutes as the Sun will emit in its 10-billion-year lifetime.
The blast was observed by the Swift space telescope and by a number of ground-based observatories.
The latest, record gamma ray burst was detected on 4 September 2005 and lasted about three minutes. It probably marked the death of a massive star as it collapsed into a black hole.
It has a so-called "redshift" of 6.29, which translates to a distance of about 13 billion light years from Earth.
This burst smashes the old distance record by 500 million light years," said Dr Daniel Reichart of the University of North Carolina, who has been leading the measurement of its distance.
This is so cool. More energy than the sun is an assload of energy. Later, QD.