Maybe, maybe not. But people are very excited at the prospect .
And yet, this week a momentous event occurred somewhere in the universe, now dubbed GRB 130427A, and an “armada of instruments” from all over the world saw it produce a gamma ray burst more powerful than what many researchers believed theoretically possible. Now thought to be the collapse of a giant star and the birth of a black hole, the event has been described as a “Rosetta stone moment” for astronomy. It has sent out information astronomers will be studying for many years to come, and while it’s too soon to draw any real conclusions, there is already widespread excitement about the sheer newness of it.
Actually the event happened before life existed on Earth and we only just found out about it, which is even more astounding.
Actually, this event was observed in April. It is certainly not the first black hole formation ever observed. The first Gamma Ray Burst was observed in 1967 by a spy satellite looking for nuclear blasts on Earth. The exciting thing about this event is twofold: 1) it is one of the brightest events on record and 2) it was better observed than any previous large GRB, thanks to automated Earth-based telescopes and amazing satellite instruments like the Fermi observatory.
JWT_Kottekoe:
Actually, this event was observed in April. It is certainly not the first black hole formation ever observed. The first Gamma Ray Burst was observed in 1967 by a spy satellite looking for nuclear blasts on Earth. The exciting thing about this event is twofold: 1) it is one of the brightest events on record and 2) it was better observed than any previous large GRB, thanks to automated Earth-based telescopes and amazing satellite instruments like the Fermi observatory.
Actually, I think it’s notable for the high energy of the gamma rays. No one seems to be able explain them with current models.
But of all the thousands of gamma-ray photons Fermi collected during that time, it only took two to steal the spotlight. The first appeared 19 seconds after the burst began; the next appeared 3¾ minutes later. And these photons packed a serious punch: 73 and 95 billion electron volts, the highest-energy photons ever recorded from a GRB.