Astronomers have investigated the nature of a very bright and long-duration gamma-ray burst, GRB 190114C, by studying its environment.<\/p>\n
Hubbles observations suggest that GRB 190114C displayed powerful emission because the collapsing star was sitting in a very dense environment, right in the middle of a bright galaxy 5 billion light years away. Image credit: NASA \/ ESA \/ Hubble \/ M. Kornmesser.<\/p>\n
Gamma-ray bursts are the most energetic explosions in the Universe, beaming out mighty jets which travel through space at 0.99 times the speed of light, as a star much more massive than our Sun collapses at the end of its life to produce a black hole.<\/p>\n
GRB 190114C was detected by a suite of telescopes, including NASAs Swift and Fermi telescopes, as well as by the Major Atmospheric Gamma Imaging Cherenkov telescopes, on January 14, 2019.<\/p>\n
Some of the light detected from the object had the highest energy ever observed: 1 TeV (Tera electron volt) about one trillion times as much energy per photon as visible light.<\/p>\n
Follow-up observations were made with the NASA\/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to study the environment around GRB 190114C and find out how this extreme emission is produced.<\/p>\n
Hubbles observations suggest that this particular burst was sitting in a very dense environment, right in the middle of a bright galaxy 5 billion light years away. This is really unusual, and suggests that might be why it produced this exceptionally powerful light, said Dr. Andrew Levan a researcher at Radboud University.<\/p>\n
GRB 190114C: the left panel shows a close pair of interacting galaxies, which is a host system of GRB 190114C; the location of GRB 190114C is indicated with a red circle; the right panel shows the optical counterpart of GRB 190114C. Image credit: de Ugarte Postigo et al, arXiv: 1911.07876.<\/p>\n
The astronomers used Hubble, together with ESOs Very Large Telescope and the Atacama Large Milimeter\/submilimeter Array (ALMA), to study the host galaxy of GRB 190114C.<\/p>\n
They investigated whether the environmental properties of the host system, which is composed of a close pair of interacting galaxies, might have contributed to the production of these very-high-energy photons.<\/p>\n
GRB 190114C occurred within the nuclear region of a massive galaxy, a location that is rather unique.<\/p>\n
This is indicative of a denser environment than that in which gamma-ray bursts are typically observed and could have been crucial for the generation of the very-high-energy photons that were observed.<\/p>\n
Scientists have been trying to observe very-high-energy emission from gamma-ray bursts for a long time, said Dr. Antonio de Ugarte Postigo, a scientist in the Instituto de Astrofsica de Andaluca.<\/p>\n
This new observation is a vital step forward in our understanding of gamma-ray bursts, their immediate surroundings, and just how matter behaves when it is moving at 99.999% of the speed of light.<\/p>\n
A paper outlining the Hubble observations appears in the journal Nature.<\/p>\n
An additional paper that details an analysis of the galaxy hosting GRB 190114C will be published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.<\/p>\n
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V.A. Acciari et al. 2019. Observation of inverse Compton emission from a long -ray burst. Nature 575: 459-463; doi: 10.1038\/s41586-019-1754-6<\/p>\n
A. de Ugarte Postigo et al. 2019. GRB 190114C in the nuclear region of an interacting galaxy A detailed host analysis using ALMA, HST and VLT. A&A, in press; arXiv: 1911.07876<\/p>\n
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Astronomers Observe Host Galaxy of Extremely Bright and Long Gamma-Ray Burst | Astronomy - Sci-News.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Astronomers have investigated the nature of a very bright and long-duration gamma-ray burst, GRB 190114C, by studying its environment. Hubbles observations suggest that GRB 190114C displayed powerful emission because the collapsing star was sitting in a very dense environment, right in the middle of a bright galaxy 5 billion light years away. Image credit: NASA \/ ESA \/ Hubble \/ M Continue reading