scientists have just recorded the most
intense electromagnetic event in the
universe we now have on record the
highest energy photons ever observed and
it turns out this may be able to tell us
something about how these events could
have shaped life on earth so far and
just how fried we would be if one
happened to nearby these incredibly
intense events are called gamma-ray
bursts or GRBs for short and are
considered the most energetic explosions
in our universe gamma radiation is a
kind of electromagnetic radiation and
we're looking out in space for gamma
rays in general because they result from
all kinds of the most spectacular and
cataclysmic cosmic events out there like
celestial bodies crashing into each
other or matter getting sucked into
black holes or stars exploding gr bees
in particular can result from two things
long dr bees are from star deaths and
short gr bees are from collisions
between things like neutron stars a GRB
from an exploding star is what
scientists think they've recently
measured with the major atmospheric
gamma imaging Cherenkov telescopes or
magic - nasa satellites observed the GRB
and told magic to turn its eyes in that
direction and then even more detailed
observations of their radiation itself
were recorded by other observatories
including the Hubble Space Telescope it
was an awesome space - a collaboration
to try and measure this event from as
many angles as we have which is
important because events like this
release a huge stream of energy when
that star dies before it decays into a
neutron star or a black hole and this
most recent star explosion in particular
went out with coid abetting photons from
this event carried one trillion electron
volts of energy that's the record the
most energy of any GRB we've ever
recorded and this event is actually the
only gamma-ray burst that has ever been
recorded by magic or any other
earthbound telescope because the
high-energy radiation like gamma rays
are absorbed by our planet's atmosphere
which is good for us because it keeps us
safe from that radiation but it's bad
for observing exciting events like this
so our understanding of GR bees so far
has been
pretty limited scientists have theorized
that gamma ray bursts this powerful were
possible but evidence of that guests had
never been observed until now and
honestly the energy from this GRB has
kind of blown our minds observations
from this GRB and a slightly less
energetic one recorded in 2018 have
opened up a whole new cosmological door
for us because we hadn't observed GRBs
of this magnitude before we previously
haven't been able to tell how all of
this crazy energy is created during the
death of a star so these new
observations have confirmed one of the
prevailing ideas shockwaves from the
stars explosion speed up electrons that
are already being emitted by the dying
star accelerating them to nearly the
speed of light which in turn generates
magnetic fields those magnetic fields
cause those super high-energy electrons
to interact with photons that are being
generated and launches those super
high-energy photons out into the rest of
the universe that electron photon energy
interaction if something called inverse
Compton scattering and thanks to
evidence from these new observations
scientists now have a pretty strong idea
that this could be what gives some of
these GRB events their extreme energy
uncovering new details about GR bees and
what they're capable of may seem like
some abstract thing happening out in
space but this work could actually have
an effect on our lives here on earth the
amount of energy released in the latest
GRB in the span of just a few seconds is
equivalent to all of the energy our Sun
will release over its entire 10 billion
ish year lifespan which seems pretty
relevant especially because scientists
think that a gamma-ray burst may have
been behind the Ordovician mass
extinction 450 million years ago one of
the Big Five extinction events that
totally wiped out biodiversity on earth
and thanks to radiation signatures
recorded in the rings of a few ancient
trees it's thought that a GRB may have
struck earth as recently as the eighth
century so while astronomers are keeping
a close eye on all of the nearby
candidates the
don't think that any are likely to blast
us anytime soon but it does still put
learning more about gr B's and how they
work into pre sharp relief seems like an
important thing to do if you want even
more unsurprisingly energetic events out
in space check out this video here and
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