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May. 10th, 2005 05:09 pmI like astronomy. I like politics (well, when politics doesn't mean: "I'm going to rip out your throat while you disembowel me.") Politics is history at its genesis. Astronomy is the history of genesis. Sometimes, both interests combine.
Way back in the late 1960s, around the year I was born actually, we were worried that the Soviets would test atomic weapons on the far side of the moon. If they did so, we wouldn't be able to verify that they were upholding a type of test-ban treaty in force at the time. So, America being the innovators we are, we rose to the level of being nearly as paranoid as the Soviets and created gamma ray detecting satellites. They sailed serenely in their orbits, scanning the heavens for a flash-burst of gamma rays.
It turns out we had vastly overestimated the Soviets' ability and will to send anything to the moon other than simple political/scientific probes. Except our satellites almost immediately started detecting huge gamma ray bursts. About one a day, as it turns out.
We weren't nearly paranoid enough to think that the Soviets were running a large-scale atomic testing program in space, so astronomers began sifting through the data trying to figure out what was going on. At first, there were theories that they were related to the sun, except they would come from all directions. Theories soon turned to something happening in the solar system, then the galaxy, until the complete and total randomness of the bursts led astronomers to the conclusion that the bursts must be coming from the universe itself...which meant these bursts were whopping huge.
By the 1980s, the daily gamma ray bursts had risen to astronomers' list of the top-5 mysteries of the universe. What in the universe would almost instantly shoot off more gamma rays than generated by an entire galaxy...then be gone before someone could train a telescope on it?
By 2001, a theory emerged that gamma ray bursts came from massive supernovae as black holes were being formed. The bursts themselves emerged from the north and south poles of the exploding star, so catching a burst was directional -- though astronomers can see many massive supernovae in other galaxies, if one of the poles of the exploding star wasn't pointed directly at us, we'd miss the burst. Reviewing data of a massive supernova from 1999 caught by satellites in gamma ray light and X-ray light seemed to confirm this...for some gamma ray bursts.
It turns out there are two types of bursts -- long and short. The long ones definitely seem to be black hole creation from a massive supernova, but the short bursts took more theory.
Early yesterday morning, a short gamma ray burst was recorded. An orbiting telescope turned in less than a minute, and barely caught some fading X-rays. An automatic email was sent, asking land-based astronomers to try to get a visual light glow, and some astronomers were able to focus in in time to detect a faint and fading visual glow. A couple billion light years away, two neutron stars had merged, crashing into each other violently and forming a black hole the hard way. The gamma rays, X-rays, and visual light recorded yesterday morning seems to confirm this theory, and after more than 30 years, a mystery is explained. Though the methods may differ, the bursts themselves are caused by the genesis of a black hole.
Way back in the late 1960s, around the year I was born actually, we were worried that the Soviets would test atomic weapons on the far side of the moon. If they did so, we wouldn't be able to verify that they were upholding a type of test-ban treaty in force at the time. So, America being the innovators we are, we rose to the level of being nearly as paranoid as the Soviets and created gamma ray detecting satellites. They sailed serenely in their orbits, scanning the heavens for a flash-burst of gamma rays.
It turns out we had vastly overestimated the Soviets' ability and will to send anything to the moon other than simple political/scientific probes. Except our satellites almost immediately started detecting huge gamma ray bursts. About one a day, as it turns out.
We weren't nearly paranoid enough to think that the Soviets were running a large-scale atomic testing program in space, so astronomers began sifting through the data trying to figure out what was going on. At first, there were theories that they were related to the sun, except they would come from all directions. Theories soon turned to something happening in the solar system, then the galaxy, until the complete and total randomness of the bursts led astronomers to the conclusion that the bursts must be coming from the universe itself...which meant these bursts were whopping huge.
By the 1980s, the daily gamma ray bursts had risen to astronomers' list of the top-5 mysteries of the universe. What in the universe would almost instantly shoot off more gamma rays than generated by an entire galaxy...then be gone before someone could train a telescope on it?
By 2001, a theory emerged that gamma ray bursts came from massive supernovae as black holes were being formed. The bursts themselves emerged from the north and south poles of the exploding star, so catching a burst was directional -- though astronomers can see many massive supernovae in other galaxies, if one of the poles of the exploding star wasn't pointed directly at us, we'd miss the burst. Reviewing data of a massive supernova from 1999 caught by satellites in gamma ray light and X-ray light seemed to confirm this...for some gamma ray bursts.
It turns out there are two types of bursts -- long and short. The long ones definitely seem to be black hole creation from a massive supernova, but the short bursts took more theory.
Early yesterday morning, a short gamma ray burst was recorded. An orbiting telescope turned in less than a minute, and barely caught some fading X-rays. An automatic email was sent, asking land-based astronomers to try to get a visual light glow, and some astronomers were able to focus in in time to detect a faint and fading visual glow. A couple billion light years away, two neutron stars had merged, crashing into each other violently and forming a black hole the hard way. The gamma rays, X-rays, and visual light recorded yesterday morning seems to confirm this theory, and after more than 30 years, a mystery is explained. Though the methods may differ, the bursts themselves are caused by the genesis of a black hole.
