- Source: GRB 190114C
GRB 190114C was an extreme gamma-ray burst explosion from a galaxy 4.5 billion light years away
(z=0.4245; magnitude=15.60est) near the Fornax constellation, that was initially detected in January 2019. The afterglow light emitted soon after the burst was found to be tera-electron volt radiation from inverse Compton emission, identified for the first time. According to the astronomers, "We observed a huge range of frequencies in the electromagnetic radiation afterglow of GRB 190114C. It is the most extensive to date for a gamma-ray burst." Also, according to other astronomers, "light detected from the object had the highest energy ever observed for a GRB: 1 Tera electron volt (TeV) -- about one trillion times as much energy per photon as visible light"; another source stated, "the brightest light ever seen from Earth [to date].".
Significance
Recent publications following the event indicate that inverse Compton scattering is the mechanism responsible for producing TeV photons. X-ray photons are scattered off of the GRB's polar jets of electrons, which move at 0.9999c. In a scattering event, much of the energy of a relativistic electron is transferred to a photon. Researchers "have been trying to observe such very high energy emission from GRB's for a long time, so this detection is considered a milestone in high-energy astrophysics".
The most recent studies propose, in summary, a model of binary system of hypernova (BdHN I) with two neutron stars, where one of them collapses in a black hole, surrounded by an accretion disk and from whose poles the GRB is launched.
See also
List of gamma-ray bursts
GRB 020813
GRB 080916C
GRB 130427A
References
Further reading
Vedrenne, G.; Atteia, J.-L. (2009). Gamma-Ray Bursts: The brightest explosions in the Universe. Springer. ISBN 978-3-540-39085-5.
Chryssa Kouveliotou; Stanford E. Woosley; Ralph A. M. J., eds. (2012). Gamma-ray bursts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-66209-3.
External links
"GRB 190114C". SIMBAD. Centre de données astronomiques de Strasbourg.
"GRB 190114C" – Hubble Space Telescope / video (1:24) on YouTube
"GRB 190114C" – Hubble Space Telescope
"GRB 190114C" – University of Chicago/tevcat