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. pizzafuckyesFebruary 28, 2011 at 7:35 AM

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

    ReplyDelete
  2. Body1February 28, 2011 at 8:47 AM

    Cool post!!

    I went here today!!!

    $upporting BRO!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. akraterFebruary 28, 2011 at 1:15 PM

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

    ReplyDelete
  4. SiphilFebruary 28, 2011 at 2:48 PM

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

    ReplyDelete
  5. JMchiefMarch 1, 2011 at 3:19 AM

    awesome man i find astronomy very interesting

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

    ReplyDelete

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