Gamma-ray burst produces the most energetic light ever recorded

Gamma-ray bursts are the most powerful explosions in the Universe, even for these highly energetic emissions, the light produced by GRB 190114C is exceptional.

Gamma-ray burst GRB 190114C (ESA/Hubble, M. Kornmesser)

New observations of the gamma-ray burst GRB 190114C collected by NASA and the ESA’s Hubble Space Telescope are helping astrophysicists better understand its nature and origins.

Like most gamma-ray bursts GRB 190114C is an energy emission focused mostly in the gamma-ray region of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Originating in a bright galaxy 5 billion light-years from Earth this GRB’s exceptionally energetic nature likely arises from the fact that it was produced by a collapsing star sat in an extremely dense environment of gas and dust.

This image shows a ground-based wide-field view of the region around GRB 190114C from the Digitized Sky Survey 2. ( ESA/Digitized Sky Survey 2 Davide De Martin)

But first detected in January 2019 by NASA’s Swift and Fermi telescopes and the Major Atmospheric Gamma Imaging Cherenkov (MAGIC) telescopes, this gamma-ray burst (GRB) first drew the attention of researchers due to the fact that it is extremely bright and long-lasting. Further examination revealed that…