Hubble Pinpoints Record-Breaking Explosion

Peering across 7.5 billion light-years and halfway back to the Big Bang, NASA´s Hubble Space Telescope has photographed the fading optical counterpart of a powerful gamma ray burst that holds the record for being the intrinsically brightest naked-eye object ever seen from Earth. For nearly a minute on March 19, this single "star" was as bright as 10 million galaxies. Hubble Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) images taken on Monday, April 7 show the fading optical counterpart of the titanic blast. Hubble astronomers had hoped to see the host galaxy where the burst presumably originated, but were taken aback that the light from the gamma ray burst is still drowning out the galaxy´s light even three weeks after the explosion. Called a long-duration gamma ray burst, such events are theorized to be caused by the death of a very massive star, perhaps weighing as much as 50 times our Sun. Credit: NASA, ESA

Researchers working at the University of Warwick, with colleagues in Leicester University, ESA and NASA, have used NASA's Hubble Space Telescope to pin point what remains of what was the brightest naked-eye object ever seen from Earth. It is 7.5 billions light-years away halfway back to the big bang.

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope photographed the fading remnants of a powerful gamma ray burst that holds the record for being the brightest naked-eye object ever seen from Earth. For nearly a minute on March 19, this single "star" was as bright as 10 million galaxies.

Hubble Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) images taken on Monday, April 7 show the fading optical counterpart of the titanic blast.

Hubble astronomers had hoped to see the host galaxy where the burst presumably originated, but were taken aback that the light from the gamma ray burst is actually still drowning out the galaxy's light even three weeks after the explosion. Called a long-duration gamma ray burst, such events are theorized to be caused by the death of a very massive star, perhaps weighing as much as 50 times our Sun.

"The slow fading leaves astronomers puzzling about just where the energy came from to power this GRB, and makes Hubble's next observations of this object in May all the more crucial" said research team member Dr Andrew Levan of the University of Warwick.

Source: University of Warwick

   

• omatumr - Apr 13, 2008
  • Rank: 3 / 5 (2)
  Quote: ["The slow fading leaves astronomers puzzling about just where the energy came from to power this GRB, and makes Hubble's next observations of this object in May all the more crucial" said research team member Dr Andrew Levan of the University of Warwick.]
  
  Astronomers peer through telescopes and make up stories to try to explain what they see.
  
  They are not at fault.
  
  Their interpretation is based on papers by solar, nuclear, particle and astro- physicists who ignored experimental data clearly showing that:
  
  1. The Sun is not a ball of hydrogen and solar neutrinos do not just oscillate away before reaching their detectors (no matter how hard they wished)!
  
  See: "Is there a deficit of solar neutrinos?" Proceeding of the Second NO-VE Workshop on Neutrino Oscillations, Venice, Italy, 3-5 Dec. 2003; arXiv:astro-ph/0410460v1
  
  2. The star that sustains life here on Earth, the Sun, is the iron-rich remains of a supernova that exploded 5 billion years ago, ejected the material that now orbits it, and then re-formed on the collapsed supernova core.
  
  See: "Isotopes tell Sun's origin and operation", First Crisis in Cosmology Conference, Moncao, Portugal, 23-25 June 2005, AIP Conference Proceedings, vol. 822 (2006) pp. 206-225; arXiv:astro-ph/0510001v1
  
  3. Solar luminosity, solar neutrinos, and solar-wind Hydrogen are by-products of repulsive interactions between neutrons in the solar core.
  
  See: "The Sun is a plasma diffuser that sorts atoms by mass," Physics of Atomic Nuclei [or Yadernaya Fizika] vol. 69, number 11, (2006) pp. 1847-1856; arXiv:astro-ph/0609509v3
  
  4. The nuclear energy source that powers the Sun and the cosmos can be seen in mass data for the 3,000 stable and radioactive nuclei that comprise all visible matter in the universe. That source of nuclear energy is more powerful than fission or fusion - the energy sources that were used for the atomic and hydrogen bombs.
  
  See: "On the cosmic nuclear cycle and the similarity of nuclei and stars," Journal of Fusion Energy, vol. 25 (2006) pp. 107-114; arXiv:nucl-th/0511051v1
  
  With kind regards,
  Oliver K. Manuel
  Emeritus Professor of Nuclear and Cosmo-Chemistry
  
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