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By NASA
4 min read
NASA’s Fermi Finds New Feature in Brightest Gamma-Ray Burst Yet Seen
In October 2022, astronomers were stunned by what was quickly dubbed the BOAT — the brightest-of-all-time gamma-ray burst (GRB). Now an international science team reports that data from NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope reveals a feature never seen before.
The brightest gamma-ray burst yet recorded gave scientists a new high-energy feature to study. Learn what NASA’s Fermi mission saw, and what this feature may be telling us about the burst’s light-speed jets. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Download high-resolution video and images from NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio
“A few minutes after the BOAT erupted, Fermi’s Gamma-ray Burst Monitor recorded an unusual energy peak that caught our attention,” said lead researcher Maria Edvige Ravasio at Radboud University in Nijmegen, Netherlands, and affiliated with Brera Observatory, part of INAF (the Italian National Institute of Astrophysics) in Merate, Italy. “When I first saw that signal, it gave me goosebumps. Our analysis since then shows it to be the first high-confidence emission line ever seen in 50 years of studying GRBs.”
A paper about the discovery appears in the July 26 edition of the journal Science.
When matter interacts with light, the energy can be absorbed and reemitted in characteristic ways. These interactions can brighten or dim particular colors (or energies), producing key features visible when the light is spread out, rainbow-like, in a spectrum. These features can reveal a wealth of information, such as the chemical elements involved in the interaction. At higher energies, spectral features can uncover specific particle processes, such as matter and antimatter annihilating to produce gamma rays.
“While some previous studies have reported possible evidence for absorption and emission features in other GRBs, subsequent scrutiny revealed that all of these could just be statistical fluctuations. What we see in the BOAT is different,” said coauthor Om Sharan Salafia at INAF-Brera Observatory in Milan, Italy. “We’ve determined that the odds this feature is just a noise fluctuation are less than one chance in half a billion.”
A jet of particles moving at nearly light speed emerges from a massive star in this artist’s concept. The star’s core ran out of fuel and collapsed into a black hole. Some of the matter swirling toward the black hole was redirected into dual jets firing in opposite directions. We see a gamma-ray burst when one of these jets happens to point directly at Earth. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab GRBs are the most powerful explosions in the cosmos and emit copious amounts of gamma rays, the highest-energy form of light. The most common type occurs when the core of a massive star exhausts its fuel, collapses, and forms a rapidly spinning black hole. Matter falling into the black hole powers oppositely directed particle jets that blast through the star’s outer layers at nearly the speed of light. We detect GRBs when one of these jets points almost directly toward Earth.
The BOAT, formally known as GRB 221009A, erupted Oct. 9, 2022, and promptly saturated most of the gamma-ray detectors in orbit, including those on Fermi. This prevented them from measuring the most intense part of the blast. Reconstructed observations, coupled with statistical arguments, suggest the BOAT, if part of the same population as previously detected GRBs, was likely the brightest burst to appear in Earth’s skies in 10,000 years.
The putative emission line appears almost 5 minutes after the burst was detected and well after it had dimmed enough to end saturation effects for Fermi. The line persisted for at least 40 seconds, and the emission reached a peak energy of about 12 MeV (million electron volts). For comparison, the energy of visible light ranges from 2 to 3 electron volts.
So what produced this spectral feature? The team thinks the most likely source is the annihilation of electrons and their antimatter counterparts, positrons.
“When an electron and a positron collide, they annihilate, producing a pair of gamma rays with an energy of 0.511 MeV,” said coauthor Gor Oganesyan at Gran Sasso Science Institute and Gran Sasso National Laboratory in L’Aquila, Italy. “Because we’re looking into the jet, where matter is moving at near light speed, this emission becomes greatly blueshifted and pushed toward much higher energies.”
If this interpretation is correct, to produce an emission line peaking at 12 MeV, the annihilating particles had to have been moving toward us at about 99.9% the speed of light.
“After decades of studying these incredible cosmic explosions, we still don’t understand the details of how these jets work,” noted Elizabeth Hays, the Fermi project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “Finding clues like this remarkable emission line will help scientists investigate this extreme environment more deeply.”
The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope is an astrophysics and particle physics partnership managed by Goddard. Fermi was developed in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy, with important contributions from academic institutions and partners in France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Sweden, and the United States.
By Francis Reddy
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
Media Contact:
Claire Andreoli
301-286-1940
claire.andreoli@nasa.gov
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
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Last Updated Jul 25, 2024 Related Terms
Black Holes Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope Galaxies, Stars, & Black Holes Gamma Rays Gamma-Ray Bursts Goddard Space Flight Center Marshall Space Flight Center Stellar-mass Black Holes The Universe Keep Exploring Discover Related Topics
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By NASA
Star Cluster Westerlund 1.X-ray: NASA/CXC/INAF/M. Guarcello et al.; Optical: NASA/ESA/STScI; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare Westerlund 1 is the biggest and closest “super” star cluster to Earth. New data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, in combination with other NASA telescopes, is helping astronomers delve deeper into this galactic factory where stars are vigorously being produced.
This is the first data to be publicly released from a project called the Extended Westerlund 1 and 2 Open Clusters Survey, or EWOCS, led by astronomers from the Italian National Institute of Astrophysics in Palermo. As part of EWOCS, Chandra observed Westerlund 1 for about 12 days in total.
Currently, only a handful of stars form in our galaxy each year, but in the past the situation was different. The Milky Way used to produce many more stars, likely hitting its peak of churning out dozens or hundreds of stars per year about 10 billion years ago and then gradually declining ever since. Astronomers think that most of this star formation took place in massive clusters of stars, known as “super star clusters,” like Westerlund 1. These are young clusters of stars that contain more than 10,000 times the mass of the Sun. Westerlund 1 is between about 3 million and 5 million years old.
This new image shows the new deep Chandra data along with previously released data from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. The X-rays detected by Chandra show young stars (mostly represented as white and pink) as well as diffuse heated gas throughout the cluster (colored pink, green, and blue, in order of increasing temperatures for the gas). Many of the stars picked up by Hubble appear as yellow and blue dots.
Only a few super star clusters still exist in our galaxy, but they offer important clues about this earlier era when most of our galaxy’s stars formed. Westerlund 1 is the biggest of these remaining super star clusters in the Milky Way and contains a mass between 50,000 and 100,000 Suns. It is also the closest super star cluster to Earth at about 13,000 light-years.
These qualities make Westerlund 1 an excellent target for studying the impact of a super star cluster’s environment on the formation process of stars and planets as well as the evolution of stars over a broad range of masses.
This new deep Chandra dataset of Westerlund 1 has more than tripled the number of X-ray sources known in the cluster. Before the EWOCS project, Chandra had detected 1,721 sources in Westerlund 1. The EWOCS data found almost 6,000 X-ray sources, including fainter stars with lower masses than the Sun. This gives astronomers a new population to study.
One revelation is that 1,075 stars detected by Chandra are squeezed into the middle of Westerlund 1 within four light-years of the cluster’s center. For a sense of how crowded this is, four light-years is about the distance between the Sun and the next closest star to Earth.
The diffuse emission seen in the EWOCS data represents the first detection of a halo of hot gas surrounding the center of Westerlund 1, which astronomers think will be crucial in assessing the cluster’s formation and evolution, and giving a more precise estimate of its mass.
A paper published in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics, led by Mario Guarcello from the Italian National Institute of Astrophysics in Palermo, discusses the survey and the first results. Follow-up papers will discuss more about the results, including detailed studies of the brightest X-ray sources. This future work will analyze other EWOCS observations, involving NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and NICER (Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer).
NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center manages the Chandra program. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory’s Chandra X-ray Center controls science from Cambridge Massachusetts and flight operations from Burlington, Massachusetts.
Read more from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory.
For more Chandra images, multimedia and related materials, visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/mission/chandra-x-ray-observatory/
Visual Description:
This is an image of the Westerlund 1 star cluster and the surrounding region, as detected in X-ray and optical light. The black canvas of space is peppered with colored dots of light of various sizes, mostly in shades of red, green, blue, and white.
At the center of the image is a semi-transparent, red and yellow cloud of gas encircling a grouping of tightly packed gold stars. The shape and distribution of stars in the cluster call to mind effervescent soda bubbles dancing above the ice cubes of a recently poured beverage.
News Media Contact
Megan Watzke
Chandra X-ray Center
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Jonathan Deal
Marshall Space Flight Center
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By NASA
A team from Iowa accepts the Artemis grand prize award during NASA’s Lunabotics competition on Friday, May 17, 2024, at the Center for Space Education near the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida. Photo credit: NASA/Derrol NailPhoto credit: NASA/Derrol Nail Members of the Artemis Generation kicked up some simulated lunar dust as part of NASA’s 2024 Lunabotics Challenge, held at The Astronauts Memorial Foundation’s Center for Space Education at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida. When the dust settled, two teams emerged from Artemis Arena as the grand prize winners of this year’s competition.
Teams from Iowa State University and the University of Alabama shared the Artemis grand prize award for scoring the most cumulative points during the annual competition. Judges scored competing teams on project management plans, presentations and demonstrations, systems engineering papers, robotic berm building, and science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) engagement.
This is the first time in Lunabotics’ 15-year history that the competition ended in a tie for the top prize, and most likely the last time.
“Both teams earned their win, but a tie was never on the table,” said Rich Johanboeke, project manager at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. “These students work hard and sacrifice much throughout the year to be a part of this challenge and to come to Kennedy, so our team will look into creating a tie-breaking event for future events.”
Alabama’s team lead, Ben Gulledge, is pictured with the team’s winning rover during NASA’s Lunabotics competition on Friday, May 17, 2024, at the Center for Space Education near the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida.Photo credit: NASA/Derrol Nail While previous Lunabotics competitions focused on lunar mining, this year’s competition reflected the current needs of NASA’s Artemis missions. Teams designed, built, and operated autonomous robotic rovers capable of building a berm structure from lunar regolith. Among other uses, berms on the Moon could provide protection against blast and material ejected during lunar landings and launches, shade cryogenic propellant tank farms, or shield a nuclear power plant from space radiation.
Of the 58 college teams across the country that applied to the challenge, 42 were invited to demonstrate their robotic rovers during the qualifying round held in the Exolith Lab at the University of Central Florida in Orlando. From there, 10 finalist teams made the short trip to Kennedy for the two-day final round, where their robots attempted to construct berms from simulated lunar regolith inside Artemis Arena.
“During the competition we had over 150 berm construction runs in the arena,” said Robert Mueller, senior technologist for Advanced Products Development in NASA’s Exploration Research and Technology Programs Directorate, as well as lead judge and co-founder of the original Lunabotics robotic mining challenge. “So, teams went into the arena 150 times and created berms – that’s pretty impressive. And 28 teams, which is 65% of the teams that attended, achieved berm construction points, which is the highest we have ever had. That speaks to the quality of this competition.”
Teams competing in this year’s Lunabotics applied the NASA Systems Engineering Process to create their prototype robots and spent upwards of nine months focused on making their designs realities.
“We really put a lot of work in this year,” said Vivian Molina Sunda, team and electrical lead for University of Illinois at Chicago. “Our team of 10 put in about 3,400 hours, so it’s really exciting to get to Kennedy Space Center and know we made the top 10.”
The University of Illinois team received two awards for its efforts – the Mission Control “Failure is Not an Option” Award for Team Persistence and the Innovation Technology Award for best design based on creative construction, innovative technology, and overall architecture.
Lunabotics teams prepare robots to compete inside the Artemis Arena during NASA’s Lunabotics competition on Friday, May 17, 2024, at the Center for Space Education near the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida.Photo credit: NASA/Derrol Nail For the hundreds of Artemis Generation members who took part in this year’s competition, Lunabotics was an opportunity to connect to NASA’s mission, work, and people, while also using classroom skills and theories in ways that will benefit them in future STEM careers.
“We go into engineering because we want to do stuff, we want to make things,” said Ben Gulledge, team and mechanical lead for the University of Alabama’s Artemis grand prize co-winning team. “This competition gives you the opportunity to take all your classroom theory and put it into practice and learn where your gaps in knowledge are. So, you learn to be a better designer and learn where you can improve in the future.”
Coordinated by NASA’s Office of STEM Engagement, the Lunabotics competition is one of NASA’s Artemis Student Challenges, designed to engage and retain students in STEM fields. These challenges are designed to provide students with opportunities to research and design in the areas of science, technology, engineering, and math, while fostering innovative ideas and solutions to challenges likely to be faced during the agency’s Artemis missions.
To view the complete list of NASA’s 2024 Lunabotics Challenge winners, or for more information visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/learning-resources/lunabotics-challenge/
Winners List
Artemis Grand Prize
Iowa State University, The University of Alabama
Robotic Construction Award
First Place – Iowa State University
Second Place – The University of Alabama
Third Place – University of Utah
Systems Engineering Paper Award
First Place – College of DuPage
Second Place – The University of Alabama
Third Place – Purdue University-Main Campus
Leaps and Bounds Award
New York University
Nova Award for Stellar Systems Engineering by a First Year Team
Ohio State University
STEM Engagement Award
First Place – University of North Florida
Second Place – Auburn University
Third Place – Iowa State University
Honorable Mention – Harrisburg University of Science and Technology
Presentation and Demonstration
First Place – University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Second Place – Purdue University-Main Campus
Third Place – University of Utah
First Steps Award – Best Presentation by a First Year Team
Harrisburg University of Science and Technology
Innovation Technology Award
University of Illinois at Chicago
The Mission Control “Failure is Not an Option” Award for Team Persistence
University of Illinois at Chicago
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By European Space Agency
ESA is inviting companies with an interest in merchandising to submit a tender to become the space agency’s official ESA-branded merchandise supplier.
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By European Space Agency
ESA space telescopes have observed the brightest gamma-ray burst ever seen. Data from this rare event could become instrumental in understanding the details of the colossal explosions that create gamma-ray bursts (GRBs).
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