Skip to playerSkip to main contentSkip to footer
  • 4 days ago
Few things in space are as bright as a supernova, but recently astronomer captured a flash out in the cosmos so great their instruments had trouble measuring it. Gamma ray burst GRB 2210099A, which was so bright not only was it named, but it’s what experts believe is also the birth of a black hole.

Category

📚
Learning
Transcript
00:00Few things in space are as bright as a supernova, but recently astronomers captured a flash out in
00:08the cosmos so great their instruments had trouble measuring it. This is gamma-ray burst GRB 221009A,
00:16which was so bright not only was it named, but it's what experts believe is also the birth of
00:20a black hole. It was detected in October last year, and when astronomers first noticed it,
00:25they turned a telescope in its direction. It's now been nicknamed boat for short,
00:29which stands for brightest of all time, and they say it was caused by the death of a star
00:33some 2.4 billion light-years away. After shedding its outer material, it released a targeted jet
00:38and a giant expulsion of gas, something unexpected before it collapsed into a black hole. The
00:43researchers say this is changing our understanding of gamma-ray bursts, with lead researcher on the
00:48project, astronomer Brendan O'Connor, saying about it, quote, GRB 221009A might be the equivalent
00:54rosetta stone of long GRBs, forcing us to revise our standard theories of how relativistic outflows
01:00are formed in collapsing massive stars. This gamma-ray burst was also particularly bright for
01:05astronomers on Earth, because one of its twin jets was pointed directly at us, giving scientists a
01:10front review, with O'Connor adding, because this burst is so bright and also nearby, we think this is a
01:16once-in-a-thousand-year opportunity to address some of the most fundamental questions regarding these
01:20explosions, from the formation of black holes to tests of dark matter models.

Recommended