Unusual Cosmic Blast Baffles NASA

WASHINGTON -- Astronomers are puzzling over an extraordinary cosmic blast in a distant galaxy.

The gamma-ray explosion was observed on March 28 by NASA's Swift satellite. Flaring from such an event usually lasts a couple of hours.

Scientists say this blast is unusual because the effects are long-lasting. More than a week later, they continue to see high-energy radiation spiking and fading at the source.

The burst was likely caused by a star that was ripped apart after drifting too close to a supermassive black hole.

Since the explosion, the Hubble Space Telescope and Chandra X-ray Observatory have focused on the aftermath. Hubble will observe if the galaxy's core changes brightness in the coming days.

The galaxy is 3.8 billion light years from Earth. A light year is about 6 trillion miles.

___

Online:

Array

Comments

[zwyziec]

12:22 AM on 04/13/2011

It's the first sign that the Rapture is coming on May21. All believers will be taken up to heaven and guys like me will be left behind to contend with 150 days of strife, pestilence, famine, destruction and republican budgets, and Jebus will come to judge all of us left be-hiners on October 21, the end of the world.

Repent, get your concealed weapon permit and stock up on gasoline and wine.

[moutonnoir]

12:25 AM on 04/13/2011

i agree. but i am stocking up on raw ether, pipes, and pyrodex.

[Rimaroka]

06:40 PM on 04/11/2011

What we're really seeing here is the Death Start blowing up.

"A Long Time Ago, In a Galaxy Far, Far, Away"....

[iLdoRight]

06:32 PM on 04/11/2011

Perhaps it is just an optical illusion, or a movie that is being played on the big movie screen at the end of the Universe wall. Oops, where did that come from?

[Jerry Villano]

01:55 PM on 04/11/2011

In the realm of time,space and what may be out there in the vast universe .. humans are fleas with about the same brain power...all that has been posted and sounds intelligent is ego based on more ego! including this one!!

[NewLiberals]

10:46 PM on 04/10/2011

Must be Republicans on other planets too.

[Gjon]

10:48 AM on 04/11/2011

Really man? You could at least put a minimal amount of effort into making a space pun. but no. Its just republicans....

[NewLiberals]

11:23 AM on 04/11/2011

Well it was the first thing that came to mind.

How about these?

There no way the @&#*$$s have Weapons of Mass Destruction!

Don't Press This Button?

OOOpppss

Proof that there is life like ours on other planets.

Feel better now?

Didn't mean to upset you by picking on your poor little republicans.

Notice that after Boehner started shedding tears the Republicans have gone all sensitive on us?

They have feelings? Who knew?

[zwyziec]

12:23 AM on 04/13/2011

Oh, poor thing, you're feelings are hurt. Remember who started this ideological war.

[Jerry Villano]

02:04 PM on 04/11/2011

I thought you liberals dont like bullying and insensitive remarks that make people feel bad...a little hypocritcal are we not!!

[NewLiberals]

03:38 PM on 04/11/2011

Sez who?

And here I thought all Republicans were truck driving, thick skinned, under-educated, insecure, religious fanatics who aren't exactly what one would call racially tolerant.

I supposed we might both be wrong about each others stereotypes.

If you think that this liberal timidly sits in the corner you have another thing coming.

Know that Liberal does not mean weak.

"Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy' resistance without fighting." Sun Tzu -The Art of War

If you wish to make comments know that they shall be challenged to the extent of their authenticity and relevance.

No Fox News free ride here.

Not if I can help it.

[stepintothelight]

10:43 AM on 04/10/2011

Get yer' 2012 survival supplies here!!!

[jaredbrain]

11:15 AM on 04/10/2011

there's no survival kit for gamma rays hehe

[Netflyer]

12:28 PM on 04/10/2011

Aluminum foil hat?

[WthyrBendragon]

06:32 PM on 04/11/2011

Gamma radiation destroys scar tissue (as in - breaks all the bonds). Thus, it's considered a major threat in places like Hollywood where a large percentage of the population has had cosmetic surgery.

You REALLY don't want to see Rodeo Drive or Wilshire Boulevard after a gamma blast.

[rjhuntington]

07:07 AM on 04/10/2011

"The burst was likely caused by a star that was ripped apart after drifting too close to a supermassive black hole."

Only in the vivid imaginations of astro-fantasy theorists. For one thing, stars don't 'drift' around; they revolve quite predictably around the galactic center along with the rest of the galaxy's stellar population. For another thing, black holes are at best speculative in nature, not observed or observable. Einstein said they were impossible to manifest, even though his relativity equations lead to them mathematically. In other words, wild guesses, not science.

[jaredbrain]

11:15 AM on 04/10/2011

you're just =really= wrong

[rjhuntington]

03:37 PM on 04/10/2011

Black holes are only needed in a cosmology ruled by gravity. In the actual universe, which is ruled not by gravity, which is a weak electrostatic effect, but by electromagnetism, which is dynamic and many orders of magnitude more powerful than gravity, there's no need for black holes -- or dark matter or a host of other manifestly impossible mathematical entities.

The new cosmology is around the corner, about to wash over human consciousness like a North Shore wave in January. The current standard model of cosmology will be swept away just like Ptolemy's epicycles before. Adios, Big Bang theory and cast of exotic impossible characters..Hello plasma physics, Birkeland currents, z-pinches, and galactic circuitry. It's a whole new way to look at things.

[Rosewren]

09:56 PM on 04/10/2011

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/04/110408124301.htm

The latest research paper on black holes March 2011.

[WthyrBendragon]

06:37 PM on 04/11/2011

Actually, there are several documented cases in which the effects of a "black hole" have been documented. It's no where near the galaxy crushing event that sci-fi movies portray but they are scientifically verified objects.

[Max Headroom]

06:55 PM on 04/09/2011

Many Stoha knew what it was like to be roasted by the fire of Slor that day, I can tell you!

[rigmoten]

10:53 PM on 04/09/2011

Post of the day!

[SolarArray]

05:06 PM on 04/09/2011

We've only been space savvy for a nanosecond in the scheme of things so I'm sure we'll see many more interesting events in the years to come and the James Webb telescope will surely find some fantastic stuff. Maybe those questions we don't even know to ask will be better defined! Can't wait....

[traceminerals]

04:28 PM on 04/09/2011

Awesome...but it sucks to be them. 3.8 billion years ago.

[Frogz]

10:36 PM on 04/09/2011

Not sure this happened 3.8 billion years ago. With cosmic inflation, something 3.8 light years away should have happened less than 3.8 billion years ago.

But yeah, sucks to be them.

[TD123]

12:20 PM on 04/09/2011

Photoshop... nice try government.

[cabrobst]

09:27 AM on 04/09/2011

Maybe their power plant got hit by a tsunami.

[Roadrun]

08:19 AM on 04/12/2011

Ever notice how when they are looking for someone to say how safe and predictable nuclear is they shy away from talking to cosmologists?

[justgottasay]

12:26 AM on 04/09/2011

wow. this thing happened 6.8 billion years ago.

[fishnetdiver]

11:42 PM on 04/08/2011

Look upon the cosmic rebirth of the great God Quetzalcoatl and dispair!

[rjhuntington]

07:08 AM on 04/10/2011

I'd believe that before I'd believe in black holes.

[JChall]

05:14 PM on 04/08/2011

Hmmm, I thought light does not escape from a black hole or at least we should see it being sucked in like a straw. This just looks like a Burst in all directions.

[RichieB]

11:04 PM on 04/08/2011

As the star is being pulled into the spinning black hole an outflowing jet is formed along it's rotational axis. A powerful blast of X-rays and gamma rays is seen when this jet is pointed in our direction.

[TMAN]

03:35 PM on 04/09/2011

From the NASA release yesterday, that's precisely what we're seeing. so the theory is the extended Gamma and xray burst we see is because we are "looking right down the barrel of the gun", the jet is pointed right at us, relatively speaking that is.

[JChall]

04:02 PM on 04/09/2011

Thanks for the response RichieB. that helps in explaining why we do not see a jet pointing in our direction. Now the picture makes more sense :)

[jaredbrain]

11:19 AM on 04/10/2011

actually, black holes do decay just more slowly than just about anything. When almost all matter is gone from the universe, black holes will still exist, but when there is less available matter in the universe (as we approach heat death for example) the rate of decay which is constant will be greater than the rate of consumption and eventually they'll explode and send a quick surge of trace elements that won't have been present in the universe for billions upon billions upon billions of years.

Space is awesome.

[Rude Monk]

12:08 PM on 04/10/2011

Some people live in their head,others live in the real world.How many times have you looked through a real optical telescope?
Forget those virtual CGI generated images that nasa puts out,we're talking about real instruments here.