A possible solution to the mystery of the gamma-ray bursts
A mystery shrouded in mystery - the origin and behavior of the shock wave created in the depths of space following a burst of gamma radiation - has been solved these days for the first time, by an international team of astronomers.
The theoretical part of the amazing phenomenon was provided by the Israeli Prof. Avi Leib, currently at the Center for Astrophysics of Harvard University in the USA. Another Israeli who shares this issue is Prof. Eli Waxman from the Weizmann Institute. Since March of this year, astronomers have been following the afterglow of one of the gamma ray bursts that occur in space. These are energy-charged flashes of light, seen at least once a day, deep in the depths of the universe.
The shock wave of the explosion leading to the flash appears in the sky in a unique ring shape. It was described by the researchers as "a ring of light, similar in size to a wedding ring - as it appears approximately 3 million km from Earth, or its size is equal to the size of the letter O printed on a sheet of paper, if it could be viewed from the moon"...
The origin of the explosion is not clear. It is known that this is a massive explosion that occurs once a day in one of the galaxies at the edge of the universe. The ring resulting from the explosion is small and can only be noticed thanks to the phenomenon known as "gravitational microlensing" (from the word lens).
The dusting occurs when light from a very, very distant source - in this case the shock wave of the explosion - is amplified due to the force of gravity, which is created by some body in space, along the line of sight of the light source. This body plays the same role as a normal lens plays in a telescope. Albert Einstein, in his theory of general relativity, predicted the existence of the microcosm phenomenon
Gravity in the universe.
Prof. Leib believes that a star whose mass is about half the mass of the sun is the one that performs the mysterious dimming phenomenon. Prof. Waxman stands behind the model regarding the ring structure of the source that propagates at a very high speed, which seems to be even greater than the speed of light. A burst of gamma radiation, such a strong and large explosion, produces shock waves that move through space at a speed close to the speed of light and into a gaseous environment, which glows with x-rays (x-rays), optical and radio wavelengths. The ring was moving at a small apparent speed because of the distance between the Earth and it.
Until now, due to the size of the ring, it could not be observed with ordinary telescopes in order to confirm the previous estimates about it. The ground telescopes are not accurate enough, due to turbulence in the atmosphere. The use of the "Hubble" space telescope did not provide particularly good sharpness (resolution) - since the reflected wave of the radiation is still a hundred thousand times smaller than the maximum sharpness of 0.1 arc-second of the "Hubble".
