A small NASA satellite receives its first gamma ray burst
NASA’s probe designed to search for the most powerful and violent explosives in the universe has successfully detected its first explosion, space agency officials announced earlier this week.
BurstCube, a shoebox-sized satellite launched in April to observe and study gamma-ray bursts, or GRBsobserved a “mega blast” in the small, dim constellation Microscopium in the southern sky. The big bang happened on June 29 and in less than two seconds it was quintillion times brighter than the sun, NASA said. recent statement.
“We’re excited to collect the science data,” Sean Semper, BurstCube’s lead engineer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, said in a statement. “It’s a milestone for the team and for the many early career engineers and scientists who were part of the mission.”
BurstCube is designed specifically for “short” searches. gamma-ray burstswhich last only two seconds or less but provide a rare glimpse into the processes at the end of life of supermassive stars and the birth of black holes.
Short GRBs usually occur when neutron stars, the massive remnants of stars that died in an explosion, collide with other neutron stars or black holes. Such gatherings also produce visible waves during periods known as magnetic wavesallowing astronomers to study the structure of neutron stars and subsequent GRBs beyond what can be detected in visible light alone. GRBs are also known to create rare chemical elements such as gold and platinum as well as life-sustaining compounds including iodine and thorium as byproducts.
Related: Scientists reveal the secrets of the gamma-ray burst – the most powerful explosion in the universe
GRBs were accidentally discovered in 1963 by US military satellites looking for gamma rays from banned Soviet nuclear weapons tests. However, more than half a century later, the right methods produce short-lived but extraordinarily powerful rays of light. remain shrouded in mystery.
To provide a catalog of short GRBs from its position high in Earth orbit, BurstCube has four spherical gamma-ray detectors arranged to give the satellite a wide view of the sky, helping the scientist to know where the event is. A gamma ray that hits any of the detectors is first converted into visible light and then into an electron beam, according to mission statement.
BurstCube was one of four small satellites launched into low Earth orbit from the International Space Station in April. Soon after, the mission team discovered one of the two solar panels had failed to fully extend and obscured the view of its star tracker, which the satellite uses to navigate itself in a narrowing direction. atmospheric drag.
As a result of this problem, the satellite is expected to give up in September and enter space, effectively reducing the initial 12-18 month mission to just six months.
“I’m proud of the way the team responded to the situation and made the most of the time we had in orbit,” Jeremy Perkins, BurstCube’s principal investigator at Goddard, said in a NASA statement. “Small projects like BurstCube not only provide an opportunity to do good science and test new technologies, like our gamma-ray detector, but also important learning opportunities for members up and coming of the astrophysics community.”
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