Scientists from the University of Western Australia have finally found an answer to what caused the longest gamma-ray burst in 2011, reports LA Times.
An international research team from the University of Western Australia have found evidence that the longest gamma-ray burst was caused by the death of a blue super-giant star, which is believed to be hundred times bigger than our Sun. Scientists explained that the occurrence of such gamma-ray bursts is when a star collapses to form a black hole, which absorbs light or any object for that matter. When gamma-ray bursts occur they emit enormous amount of gamma and X-rays which are the most luminous explosions in the Universe.
Normally, gamma-ray bursts do not last for too long. Sometimes they appear like a lightening, less than two seconds, and the longest one is typically 20 to 50 seconds, says the report from The LA Times.
The gamma-ray bursts are detected by the NASA's Swift and Fermi space telescope missions every day on an average. But the GRB 111209A, first detected on 9 December, 2011, was the longest one ever recorded since the Big Bang which lasted for seven hours. The occurrence of such rare gamma-ray burst got astronomers questing about the cause of it.
"We really think we've found this new class of gamma-ray bursts and a natural explanation for creating them in a type of star collapse that we haven't previously talked about," said Andrew Levan, an astronomer at the University of Warwick in Coventry, England, who led a study on the phenomena.
Using NASA's Swift telescope, a European Space Agency's satellite, and more help to the study, scientists finally concluded that the death of a super-giant star caused the explosion.
"We have observed the longest gamma ray burst in modern history, and think this event is caused by the death of a blue supergiant," Bruce Gendre from the French National Center for Scientific Research, said in a statement. "It caused the most powerful stellar explosion in recent history, and likely since the Big Bang occurred."
Levan explained that the blue supergiant that caused the explosion could be 100 to 1,000 times bigger than our Sun and hundred million to a billion miles in diameter. If placed such a huge star in the position of the Sun, it could cover up till the Jupiter orbit in our Solar System.
The findings were presented at the 2013 Huntsville Gamma-Ray Burst Symposium in Nashville, Tennessee.
