Scientists using NASA’s Swift satellite have detected a new kind of cosmic explosion. The event appears to be a precursor to a supernova, which is expected to reach peak brightness in about a week’s time. UK astronomers and their colleagues around the world are watching closely as they have never seen an explosion of this kind before.
Satellites and the world’s largest telescopes are now trained on the sight, watching and waiting. The explosion has the trappings of a gamma-ray burst (GRB), the most distant and powerful type of explosion known. Yet this explosion, detected on February 18 2006, was very much closer and 100 times longer than the typical gamma-ray burst. And it possesses characteristics never seen before.
Dr Julian Osborne, lead investigator for Swift at the University of Leicester said “The bright X-ray source seen when Swift slewed to the burst varied rather slowly for about 40 minutes, quite different to the very rapid decline of more normal GRBs. It did later decline much more rapidly, like a normal GRB, so the challenge will be to find a physical description of the explosion expanding into the host galaxy gas which matches this new pattern”
“This is totally new and unexpected,” said Neil Gehrels, Swift principal investigator at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. “This is the type of unscripted event in our nearby universe that we hoped Swift could catch.”
The explosion, called GRB 060218 after the date it was discovered, originated in a star-forming galaxy about 440 million light-years away toward the constellation Aries. This is the second-closest gamma-ray burst ever detected, if indeed it is a true burst.
The burst of gamma rays lasted for nearly 2,000 seconds; most bursts last a few milliseconds to tens of seconds. The explosion was surprisingly dim, however,given its relative closeness, suggesting that scientists might be viewing the event slightly off-axis. Yet this is just one explanation on the table. The standard theory for gamma-ray bursts is that the high-energy light is beamed in our direction.
Dr Nial Tanvir of the University of Hertfordshire is studying the event and said “This is a very odd GRB, but it also seems to be a very unusual supernova. Astronomers have observed many thousands of supernovae over the years, and never seen the strange gamma-ray display we’ve witnessed here.”
Dr Evert Rol of the University of Leicester said “Being such a unique event it is important to observe it as intensively as possible. We have been taking images of the emerging supernova on a daily basis using the UK’s large robotic telescopes stationed in the Canaries and Hawaii.”
Professor Keith Mason, Chief Executive of the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council which funds UK participation in Swift, led UK work on Swift’s Ultraviolet and Optical Telescope (UVOT). He said “This is extremely exciting, not only for what it can potentially tell us about the relationship between gamma-ray bursts and `ordinary’ supernova explosions, but also because the detection of the gamma-ray flash has alerted us to the potential presence of a nearby supernova, which we can now study in detail from the very beginning. Usually these events are not detected until after the exploding star has brightened substantially in the optical band, many days after the initial explosion.”
A European team, including astronomers from the Universities of Leicester and Hertfordshire, led by Italy’s National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF) has found hints of a budding supernova. Using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile, the scientists have watched the afterglow of this burst grow brighter in optical light. This brightening, along with other tell-tale spectral characteristics in the light, strongly suggests that a supernova is unfolding.
“We expected to see the typical featureless spectrum of a gamma-ray burst afterglow, but instead we found a mixture between this and the more complex spectrum of a supernova similar to those generally observed weeks after the gamma-ray burst,” said Nicola Masetti of INAF’s Institute for Space Astrophysics and Cosmic Physics (IASF) in Bologna. “A supernova must be in the works.”
Masetti said this could be a Type Ic supernova, characterized by its massive size and the abundance of certain chemical elements. This implies a scenario in which a very massive star has collapsed into a black hole and subsequently exploded; the debris from the explosion is trapping optical light inside and as the dust settles, more and more light will break free.
If they are correct, scientists will have an unprecedented view of a supernova from start to finish across many wavelengths, from radio through X-ray. Radio telescopes in fact have seen this burst from the day it was detected, another first.
Because the burst was so long, Swift was able to observe the bulk of the explosion with all three of its instruments: the Burst Alert Telescope, which detected the burst; and the X-ray Telescope and Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope, which provide high-resolution imagery and spectra across a broad range of wavelengths.
Scientists are making observations with the Hubble Space Telescope, and the Chandra X-ray and XMM-Newton Observatories as well as ground based telescopes such as ESO’s Very Large Telescope and the UK’s robotic Liverpool Telescope on Tenerife and UKIRT on Hawaii.. Amateur astronomers in dark skies in the northern hemisphere might be able to see the explosion with a 16-inch telescope as it hits 16th magnitude brightness for a few hours after sunset.
Notes for Editors
For a before-after image of the explosion and its coordinates, visit: www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/swift/bursts/oddball_burst.html The supernova is the blue object which appears in the centre of the second image.
Supernova
Stars much more massive than the Sun end their lives in an explosion called a supernova. these rare events are normally detected several days or even weeks after the initial explosion as the object gets brighter. In this case the gamma-ray burst jet forced its way out of the dying star and emitted a vast amount of radiation in our direction. This beam of light was detected by Swift and told us where the supernova had occurred. Thus the evolution of this supernova can be studied from a much earlier time than for a typical example.
About Swift:
Gamma-Ray Bursts were only discovered in 1969, and their distance has only been known for eight years. Swift, a mission with substantial UK and Italian participation, is designed to solve the mystery of the origin of gamma-ray bursts. Scientists believe the bursts are related to the formation of black holes throughout the universe – the birth cries of black holes.
To track these mysterious bursts, Swift carries a suite of three instruments. The Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) instrument, built by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, detects and locates 2-3 gamma-ray bursts weekly, relaying a rough position to the ground within 20 seconds. The satellite automatically and swiftly re-points itself to bring the burst area into the narrower fields of view of the on-board X-ray Telescope (XRT) and the UltraViolet/Optical Telescope (UVOT). These telescopes study the afterglow of the burst produced by the cooling material that remain from the original explosion.
The XRT (with its Leicester-provided X-ray camera) uniquely finds a precise arc-second position of the burst. The XRT and the UVOT (with the MSSL-provided telescope) measures the spectrum of its afterglow in X-ray and visible wavelengths. For most of the bursts detected, Swift data, combined with complementary observations conducted with ground-based telescopes, enables the distances to the burst sources to be measured.
The afterglow phenomenon can linger in X-ray light, optical light, and radio waves for hours to weeks, providing detailed information about the burst. Swift routinely checks every discovered burst regularly to study the fading afterglow, often working in conjunction with ground-based optical and radio telescopes.
The NASA Goddard Space Flight Center manages the Swift project, the satellite is controlled from Penn State University, using a ground station in Kenya. Swift is a NASA mission with the participation of the Italian Space Agency and the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council in the United Kingdom.
The UK Swift Science Data Centre is at http://www.swift.ac.uk/
Contact:
Susan Hendrix
NASA Goddard Space Flight Centre
1-301-286-7745
susan.m.hendrix@nasa.gov
Julia Maddock
PPARC Press Office
Mobile 07901 514975
Email Julia.maddock@pparc.ac.uk (not accessed at the weekend, call mobile number instead)
UK Science Contacts
Dr Nial Tanvir
Email nrt@star.herts.ac.uk
Office: 01707 286299
Mobile: 07980 136499
Home: +44 1763 241841
Dr Julian Osborne
Email: julo@star.le.ac.uk
Office: 0116 252 3598
About PPARC
The Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (PPARC) is the UK’s strategic science investment agency. It funds research, education and public understanding in four broad areas of science – particle physics, astronomy, cosmology and space science.
PPARC is government funded and provides research grants and studentships to scientists in British universities, gives researchers access to world-class facilities and funds the UK membership of international bodies such as the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, CERN, the European Space Agency and the European Southern Observatory. It also contributes money for the UK telescopes overseas on La Palma, Hawaii, Australia and in Chile, the UK Astronomy Technology Centre at the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh and the MERLIN/VLBI National Facility.
