The GRB lasted so long that a record number of telescopes on the ground were able to catch it while space-based observations were still ongoing.
Just after 3:47 a.m. EDT on Saturday, April 27, Fermi's Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM) triggered on an eruption of high-energy light in the constellation Leo. The burst occurred as NASA's Swift satellite was slewing between targets, which delayed its Burst Alert Telescope's detection by less than a minute.
Fermi's Large Area Telescope (LAT) recorded one gamma ray with an energy of at least 94 billion electron volts (GeV), or some 35 billion times the energy of visible light, and about three times greater than the LAT's previous record. The GeV emission from the burst lasted for hours, and it remained detectable by the LAT for the better part of a day, setting a new record for the longest gamma-ray emission from a GRB.
The burst subsequently was detected in optical, infrared and radio wavelengths by ground-based observatories, based on the rapid accurate position from Swift. Astronomers quickly learned that the GRB was located about 3.6 billion light-years away, which for these events is relatively close.
Gamma-ray bursts are the universe's most luminous explosions. Astronomers think most occur when massive stars run out of nuclear fuel and collapse under their own weight. As the core collapses into a black hole, jets of material shoot outward at nearly the speed of light.
The jets bore all the way through the collapsing star and continue into space, where they interact with gas previously shed by the star and generate bright afterglows that fade with time.
If the GRB is near enough, astronomers usually discover a supernova at the site a week or so after the outburst.
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Credit: NASA/DOE/Fermi LAT Collaboration", "width": 320, "height": 320, "pixels": 102400 } }, { "id": 309562, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 465869, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a011200/a011261/frames/839x839_1x1_1p/", "filename": "839x839_1x1_1p", "media_type": "Frames", "alt_text": "This animation shows a more detailed Fermi LAT view of GRB 130427A. The sequence shows high-energy (100 Mev to 100 GeV) gamma rays from a 20-degree-wide region of the sky starting three minutes before the burst to 14 hours after. Following an initial one-second spike, the LAT emission remained relatively quiet for the next 15 seconds while Fermi's GBM instrument showed bright, variable lower-energy emission. Then the burst re-brightened in the LAT over the next few minutes and remained bright for nearly half a day. 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Credit: NASA/DOE/Fermi LAT Collaboration", "width": 960, "height": 540, "pixels": 518400 } } ], "extra_data": {} }, { "id": 346020, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11261/#media_group_346020", "widget": "Basic text", "title": "For More Information", "caption": "", "description": "See [http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/GLAST/news/shocking-burst.html](http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/GLAST/news/shocking-burst.html)", "items": [], "extra_data": {} } ], "studio": "gms", "funding_sources": [ "ESE" ], "credits": [ { "role": "Producer", "people": [ { "name": "Scott Wiessinger", "employer": "USRA" } ] }, { "role": "Science writer", "people": [ { "name": "Francis Reddy", "employer": "University of Maryland College Park" } ] }, { "role": "Graphics", "people": [ { "name": "Francis Reddy", "employer": "University of Maryland College Park" } ] } ], "missions": [ "Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope" ], "series": [ "Astrophysics Stills" ], "tapes": [], "papers": [], "datasets": [ { "name": "", "common_name": "", "platform": "Fermi", "sensor": "LAT", "type": "Event List", "organizations": [], "description": "Fermi Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST) Large Area Telescope (LAT)", "credit": "", "url": "http://fermi.gsfc.nasa.gov", "date_range": null } ], "nasa_science_categories": [ "Universe" ], "keywords": [ "Ast", "Astrophysics", "Earth Science", "Fermi", "Gamma Ray", "Gamma Ray Burst", "Space", "Spectral/Engineering", "Star" ], "recommended_pages": [], "related": [ { "id": 14317, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/14317/", "page_type": "Produced Video", "title": "NASA Missions Probe What May Be a 1-In-10,000-Year Gamma-ray Burst", "description": "The Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field Camera 3 revealed the infrared afterglow (circled) of the BOAT GRB and its host galaxy, seen nearly edge-on as a sliver of light extending to the burst's upper left. This animation flips between images taken on Nov. 8 and Dec. 4, 2022, one and two months after the eruption. Given its brightness, the burst’s afterglow may remain detectable by telescopes for several years. Each picture combines three near-infrared images taken at wavelengths from 1 to 1.5 microns and is 34 arcseconds across. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, A. Levan (Radboud University); Image Processing: Gladys Kober || GRB_WFC3IR1108+1204_circled.gif (512x512) [3.5 MB] || ", "release_date": "2023-03-28T13:50:00-04:00", "update_date": "2023-05-03T11:43:38.257753-04:00", "main_image": { "id": 842157, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a014300/a014317/GRB_all_rings_XMM_2160_searchweb.png", "filename": "GRB_all_rings_XMM_2160_searchweb.png", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "XMM-Newton images recorded 20 dust rings, 19 of which are shown here in arbitrary colors. This composite merges observations made two and five days after GRB 221009A erupted. Dark stripes indicate gaps between the detectors. A detailed analysis shows that the widest ring visible here, comparable to the apparent size of a full moon, came from dust clouds located about 1,300 light-years away. The innermost ring arose from dust at a distance of 61,000 light-years on the other side of our galaxy. GRB221009A is only the seventh gamma-ray burst to display X-ray rings, and it triples the number previously seen around one.Credit: ESA/XMM-Newton/M. Rigoselli (INAF)", "width": 320, "height": 180, "pixels": 57600 } }, { "id": 14227, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/14227/", "page_type": "Produced Video", "title": "NASA Missions Detect Record-Breaking Burst", "description": "Swift’s X-Ray Telescope captured the afterglow of GRB 221009A about an hour after it was first detected. The bright rings form as a result of X-rays scattered by otherwise unobservable dust layers within our galaxy that lie in the direction of the burst. The dark vertical line is an artifact of the imaging system.Credit: NASA/Swift/A. Beardmore (University of Leicester) || XRT_image_crop.jpg (1084x1080) [629.3 KB] || XRT_image_crop_print.jpg (1024x1020) [657.0 KB] || XRT_image_crop_searchweb.png (320x180) [133.7 KB] || XRT_image_crop_web.png (320x318) [191.7 KB] || XRT_image_crop_thm.png (80x40) [26.1 KB] || ", "release_date": "2022-10-13T15:30:00-04:00", "update_date": "2025-01-06T01:35:18.251897-05:00", "main_image": { "id": 368759, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a014200/a014227/LAT_221009A_burst_opt_1080.gif", "filename": "LAT_221009A_burst_opt_1080.gif", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "This sequence constructed from Fermi Large Area Telescope data reveals the sky in gamma rays centered on the location of GRB 221009A. Each frame shows gamma rays with energies greater than 100 million electron volts (MeV), where brighter colors indicate a stronger gamma-ray signal. In total, they represent more than 10 hours of observations. The glow from the midplane of our Milky Way galaxy appears as a wide diagonal band. The image is about 20 degrees across.Credit: NASA/DOE/Fermi LAT Collaboration", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "pixels": 1166400 } }, { "id": 13220, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/13220/", "page_type": "Produced Video", "title": "Ten Years of High-Energy Gamma-ray Bursts", "description": "Green dots show the locations of 186 gamma-ray bursts observed by the Large Area Telescope (LAT) on NASA’s Fermi satellite during its first decade. Some noteworthy bursts are highlighted and labeled. Background: Constructed from nine years of LAT data, this map shows how the gamma-ray sky appears at energies above 10 billion electron volts. The plane of our Milky Way galaxy runs along the middle of the plot. Brighter colors indicate brighter gamma-ray sources.Credit: NASA/DOE/Fermi LAT Collaboration || Fermi_LAT_GRBs.jpg (5991x2994) [2.1 MB] || ", "release_date": "2019-06-13T11:00:00-04:00", "update_date": "2023-05-03T13:45:54.309282-04:00", "main_image": { "id": 395532, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a013200/a013220/Fermi_LAT_GRBs_no_labels_print.jpg", "filename": "Fermi_LAT_GRBs_no_labels_print.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "An unlabeled version of the image above. \rCredit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center\r", "width": 1024, "height": 511, "pixels": 523264 } }, { "id": 11423, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11423/", "page_type": "Produced Video", "title": "Glimpsing the Infrastructure of a Gamma-ray Burst Jet", "description": "A new study using observations from the Liverpool Telescope in the Canary Islands provides the best look to date at magnetic fields at the heart of gamma-ray bursts, the most energetic explosions in the universe. An international team of astronomers from Britain, Slovenia and Italy has glimpsed the infrastructure of a burst's high-speed jet.Gamma-ray bursts are the most luminous explosions in the cosmos. Most are thought to be triggered when the core of a massive star runs out of nuclear fuel, collapses under its own weight, and forms a black hole. The black hole then drives jets of particles that drill all the way through the collapsing star and erupt into space at nearly the speed of light.Theoretical models of gamma-ray bursts predict that light from part of the jet should show strong and stable polarized emissions if the jet possesses a structured magnetic field originating from the environment around the newly-formed black hole, thought to be the \"central engine\" driving the burst.Previous observations of optical afterglows detected polarizations of about 10 percent, but they provided no information about how this value changed with time. As a result, they could not be used to test competing jet models.The Liverpool Telescope's rapid targeting enabled the team to catch the explosion just four minutes after the initial outburst. Over the following 10 minutes, RINGO2 collected 5,600 photographs of the burst afterglow while the properties of the magnetic field were still encoded in its captured light. The observations show that the initial afterglow light was polarized by 28 percent, the highest value ever recorded for a burst, and slowly declined to 16 percent, while the angle of the polarized light remained the same. This supports the presence of a large-scale organized magnetic field linked to the black hole, rather than a tangled magnetic field produced by instabilities within the jet itself. || ", "release_date": "2013-12-04T13:00:00-05:00", "update_date": "2023-05-03T13:51:23.330975-04:00", "main_image": { "id": 460694, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a011400/a011423/GRB_Jet_Mag_Field_FINAL_1080.jpg", "filename": "GRB_Jet_Mag_Field_FINAL_1080.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "Measurements of polarized light in the afterglow of GRB 120308A by the Liverpool Telescope and its RINGO2 instrument indicate the presence of a large-scale stable magnetic field linked with a young black hole, as shown in this illustration.Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/S. Wiessinger", "width": 1920, "height": 1080, "pixels": 2073600 } }, { "id": 11407, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11407/", "page_type": "Produced Video", "title": "Briefing Materials: NASA Missions Explore Record-Setting Cosmic Blast", "description": "On Thursday, Nov. 21, 2013, NASA held a media teleconference to discuss new findings related to a brilliant gamma-ray burst detected on April 27. Audio of the teleconference is available for download here.Related feature story: www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/nasa-sees-watershed-cosmic-blast-in-unique-detail/.Audio of Sylvia Zhu interview for a Science Podcast. Briefing Speakers Introduction: Paul Hertz, NASA Astrophysics Division Director, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.Charles Dermer, astrophysicist, Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, D.C.Thomas Vestrand, astrophysicist, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, N.M.Chryssa Kouveliotou, astrophysicist, NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala. Presenter 1: Charles Dermer || ", "release_date": "2013-11-21T14:00:00-05:00", "update_date": "2023-05-03T13:51:26.416266-04:00", "main_image": { "id": 460887, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a011400/a011407/Nebula-Jet_Still_1.jpg", "filename": "Nebula-Jet_Still_1.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "Gamma-ray bursts are the most luminous explosions in the cosmos. Astronomers think most occur when the core of a massive star runs out of nuclear fuel, collapses under its own weight, and forms a black hole. The black hole then drives jets of particles that drill all the way through the collapsing star at nearly the speed of light. Artist's rendering.Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center ", "width": 1920, "height": 1080, "pixels": 2073600 } }, { "id": 10861, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10861/", "page_type": "Produced Video", "title": "Fermi Pulsar Interactive Videos", "description": "These videos originally accompanied a Fermi Pulsar Interactive. That interactive is now available here. || ", "release_date": "2011-11-03T14:00:00-04:00", "update_date": "2023-05-03T13:53:30.085282-04:00", "main_image": { "id": 482268, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a010800/a010861/What_Is_Fermi_H264_Good_1280x720_29.97.00327_print.jpg", "filename": "What_Is_Fermi_H264_Good_1280x720_29.97.00327_print.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "What is Fermi. Narrated short video.Watch this video on the NASAexplorer YouTube channel.For complete transcript, click here.", "width": 1024, "height": 576, "pixels": 589824 } } ], "sources": [], "products": [], "newer_versions": [], "older_versions": [], "alternate_versions": [] }