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.", "items": [], "extra_data": {} }, { "id": 342230, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11423/#media_group_342230", "widget": "Single image", "title": "", "caption": "", "description": "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.
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Wiessinger ", "width": 1920, "height": 1080, "pixels": 2073600 } }, { "id": 296269, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 460705, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a011400/a011423/GRB_JET_Still_plus_Mag_Field.tif", "filename": "GRB_JET_Still_plus_Mag_Field.tif", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "Theoretical models link the presence of strong and stable polarized light in a gamma-ray burst’s jet with a large-scale magnetic field (a blue spiral, in this illustration) originating from the newly-formed black hole. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/S. 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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": 11261, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11261/", "page_type": "Produced Video", "title": "NASA's Fermi, Swift See 'Shockingly Bright' Gamma-ray Burst", "description": "A record-setting blast of gamma rays from a dying star in a distant galaxy has wowed astronomers around the world. The eruption, which is classified as a gamma-ray burst, or GRB, and designated GRB 130427A, produced the highest-energy light ever detected from such an event.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. This GRB is in the closest 5 percent of bursts, so ground-based observatories are monitoring its location in hopes of finding an underlying supernova. || ", "release_date": "2013-05-03T12:00:00-04:00", "update_date": "2023-05-03T13:52:11.580337-04:00", "main_image": { "id": 465852, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a011200/a011261/GRB_LAT_B4_AFTER_2.jpg", "filename": "GRB_LAT_B4_AFTER_2.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "These maps, both centered on the north galactic pole, show how the sky looks at gamma-ray energies above 100 million electron volts (MeV). The first frame shows the sky during a three-hour interval prior to GRB 130427A. The second frame shows a three-hour interval starting 2.5 hours before the burst, and ending 30 minutes into the event. The Fermi team chose this interval to demonstrate how bright the burst was relative to the rest of the gamma-ray sky. This burst was bright enough that Fermi autonomously left its normal surveying mode to give the LAT instrument a better view, so the three-hour exposure following the burst does not cover the whole sky in the usual way. Credit: NASA/DOE/Fermi LAT Collaboration", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "pixels": 1166400 } } ], "sources": [], "products": [], "newer_versions": [], "older_versions": [], "alternate_versions": [] }