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The brightest gamma-ray burst of all time came from a supernova but mysteriously didn't show signs of heavy elements
In October 2022, an extremely bright flash caught the attention of the Gemini South telescope in Chile. It was quickly determined to be the brightest ever seen, hence its nickname: the Brightest Of All Time (the BOAT).
Now, a group of researchers has examined the event with the Webb Space Telescope and concluded that the BOAT’s cause was a supernova: an explosive and brilliant death of a star. The researchers also looked for heavy elements like gold and platinum but saw no signs of them, leaving the question of their origins just as open as before. The team’s research is published today in Nature Astronomy.
Heavy elements are produced by neutron-star mergers—at least, some of them are. The heavy stuff in the universe is too abundant for such stellar mergers to account for all of them. Even after two stars in a binary system explode, leaving the dense shells that are neutron stars, “it can take billions and billions of years for the two neutron stars to slowly get closer and closer and finally merge,” according to Peter Blanchard, an astronomer at Northwestern University and the study’s lead author, in university release.
“But observations of very old stars indicate that parts of the universe were enriched with heavy metals before most binary neutron stars would have had time to merge,” Blanchard added. “That’s pointing us to an alternative channel.”
gizmodo.com
In October 2022, an extremely bright flash caught the attention of the Gemini South telescope in Chile. It was quickly determined to be the brightest ever seen, hence its nickname: the Brightest Of All Time (the BOAT).
Now, a group of researchers has examined the event with the Webb Space Telescope and concluded that the BOAT’s cause was a supernova: an explosive and brilliant death of a star. The researchers also looked for heavy elements like gold and platinum but saw no signs of them, leaving the question of their origins just as open as before. The team’s research is published today in Nature Astronomy.
Heavy elements are produced by neutron-star mergers—at least, some of them are. The heavy stuff in the universe is too abundant for such stellar mergers to account for all of them. Even after two stars in a binary system explode, leaving the dense shells that are neutron stars, “it can take billions and billions of years for the two neutron stars to slowly get closer and closer and finally merge,” according to Peter Blanchard, an astronomer at Northwestern University and the study’s lead author, in university release.
“But observations of very old stars indicate that parts of the universe were enriched with heavy metals before most binary neutron stars would have had time to merge,” Blanchard added. “That’s pointing us to an alternative channel.”
Mystery of Where Gold and Platinum Come From Deepens After Gargantuan Cosmic Explosion
The brightest gamma-ray burst of all time came from a supernova but mysteriously didn't show signs of heavy elements.
gizmodo.com
