I was watching a video on YouTube in which the guy said “gamma ray bursts are really quite narrow” (or something to that effect). How narrow is narrow? Three inches? A mile? 8 million miles?
The Wiki article says 2-20 degrees.
At least, I think it does. Not my comfort zone for topics.
20 degrees does not seem all that narrow to me, but I’m assuming if it’s a wider jet then it’s also less energetic.
Even 2 degrees is a bit frightening over a long distance…
“No known process in the Universe can produce this much energy in such a short time. However, gamma-ray bursts are thought to be highly focused explosions, with most of the explosion energy collimated into a narrow jet traveling at speeds exceeding 99.995% of the speed of light. The approximate angular width of the jet (that is, the degree of beaming) can be estimated directly by observing the achromatic “jet breaks” in afterglow light curves: a time after which the slowly decaying afterglow abruptly begins to fade rapidly as the jet slows down and can no longer beam its radiation as effectively. Observations suggest significant variation in the jet angle from between 2 and 20 degrees.[62]”
I think this is their cite 62.
And since it’s an angle, the width in meters (or inches or miles or whatever) depends on how far away you are from it.