Monday, February 28, 2011

Anniversary of first gamma-ray burst!

Today on 28 February 1997 the first GRB was detected. It lasted for 80 seconds. GRBs are the most energetic (eletrcomagnetic radiation) events known in the universe. The sources of GRBs are billions of light years away from Earth - which means that explosions are extremely energetic and extremely rare. And awesome.
Interestingly, the burst was detected by an Italian Space Agency (with the participation of Dutch astonomers) satellite (yeah, Italy has its own space agency) and not by NASA or ESA. Imagine that.

Happy birthday GRB 970228! ♥

An artist's illustration of GRB






















GRB - Wikipedia article about this particular GRB.
Hubble News  - Hubble news article from 1997.

5 comments:

  1. really? the most energetic? didn't know that...

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  2. Cool post!!

    I went here today!!!

    $upporting BRO!!

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  3. Oh wow, I think I've read about these somewhere, thanks for reminding. Interesting events.

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  4. Awesome. I've been reading a lot about astronomy lately.

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  5. awesome man i find astronomy very interesting

    Supporting:)
    http://jmchief93elite.blogspot.com

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