Una explosión de récord
El punto rodeado por un círculo que vemos en esta Imagen de la Semana casi ha desaparecido. ¿Qué ha ocurrido? Esta secuencia de imágenes, tomadas en el rango óptico de la luz con el Very Large Telescope de ESO, muestra cómo se desvanece el estallido o brote de rayos gamma GRB 221009A. Los estallidos de rayos gamma son los fenómenos más luminosos que conocemos en el universo, y GRB 221009A es el más brillante visto desde la Tierra hasta ahora.
Este estallido fue detectado en octubre de 2022 por varios telescopios espaciales de rayos gamma, como Swift y Fermi, de la NASA, e INTEGRAL, de la ESA. Luego, unas horas después de la detección inicial, el instrumento X-shooter de ESO, instalado en el VLT, obtuvo un espectro que proporcionó la primera medida de la distancia a la que se encuentra la explosión, aproximadamente 2 400 millones de años luz. Gracias a estas medidas, un equipo de astrónomos y astrónomas, dirigido por Daniele Bjørn Malesani (Universidad de Radboud, Países Bajos; DAWN/Instituto Niels Bohr, Dinamarca) descartó que su origen estuviera en la Vía Láctea, aunque la explosión sigue estando mucho más cerca de nosotros que los típicos GRB.
La distancia también permitió al equipo calcular la luminosidad intrínseca de la explosión. A pesar de estar en nuestro vecindario cósmico, la explosión sigue siendo intrínsecamente muy luminosa. De hecho, de entre estos fenómenos cuya luminosidad ha podido medirse (en los 55 años transcurridos desde que los primeros satélites de rayos gamma se pusieron en órbita), este es el GRB más intenso y el más brillante jamás visto desde la Tierra. Según el equipo de Malesani, la probabilidad de observar una explosión tan energética y cercana como esta es de una vez cada 1000 años.
Un equipo dirigido por Andrew Levan (también de la Universidad de Radboud) observó esta explosión única con JWST en longitudes de onda más largas. La combinación del espectro obtenido por X-shooter con los datos de JWST permite estudiar en profundidad la naturaleza de este evento único.
Los estallidos de rayos gamma pueden durar desde unos pocos milisegundos hasta horas (GRB 221009A duró aproximadamente 10 horas). Una vez que el destello brillante inicial de rayos gamma se apaga, el resplandor brilla en longitudes de onda más largas, como la luz visible o infrarroja, pero se desvanece muy rápidamente, por lo que la comunidad astronómica debe apresurarse para poder observar estas fuentes efímeras.
Enlaces:
- Versión de esta imagen en formato vídeo
- Artículos científicos de Malesani et al. y Levan et al.
ESO/Malesani et al., The Stargate collaboration
Sobre la imagen
| Identificador: | potw2313a |
| Idioma: | es-cl |
| Tipo: | Collage |
| Fecha de publicación: | 29 de Marzo de 2023 a las 06:00 |
| Tamaño: | 1592 x 548 px |
Sobre el objeto
| Nombre: | GRB 221009A |
| Tipo: | Early Universe : Cosmology : Phenomenon : Gamma Ray Burst |
| Distancia: | 2 mil millones años luz |
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