Greenbelt – A massive gamma ray burst briefly blinded NASA´s Swift orbiting space observatory when a star was turning into a black hole. The cosmic x-ray blast is the brightest ever detected on record.
Gamma ray bursts are luminous electromagnetic occurrences that are mostly known to happen in distant galaxies during a supernova event or when a star collapses and forms a black hole. These blasts can last from a few milliseconds to a few minutes and are known to be followed by an afterglow.
These bursts can span from a small distance to billions of light-years across and cannot be foreseen, however, most blasts are billions of light-years away from our planet. They are also quite rare as only a handful occur every one million years.
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/294720
How insignificant we are in the scheme of the Universe?
Tag: Space
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5 billion-year-old gamma ray burst temporarily blinds observatory.
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Beautiful Time-Lapse of The Milky Way over Hawaii. Video.
In all the messiness of life’s day-to-day, one tends to forget the majesty that is the universe on a grand scale. Let this stunning time-lapse of the Milky Way over Hawaii remind you of your insignificance.
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Physicist Says Warp Speed Will Kill You.
If we have to observe speeds >speed of Light the Observer has to be at the same speed or coordinates of the Observed,and Time factor being identical with space, the observer has to move to another dimension, probably that of the Observed. Please read my Blog Time -A Non linear Theory, under Astrophysics.
Story.
Last year, a group of physicists figured out that achieving warp speed had the potential–depending on how we did it, at least–to create a black hole that would suck up Earth and destroy us all.Putting aside that cheery bit of news for a moment, another physicist recently said that even if that particular scenario didn’t come to pass, the simple matter of traveling warp speed could kill you–all because of some stray hydrogen atoms.
Johns Hopkins physicist William Edelstein said at the American Physical Society conference in Washington, D.C. the two hydrogen atoms per cubic centimeter in space pose no threat to regular space travel, but would transform into “deadly galactic space mines” at near-light speed, Space.com reports.
Edelstein went on to say that it would feel like getting struck by the high-energy proton beam from the Large Hadron Collider particle accelerator at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland. The audience at the talk wasn’t thrilled with this, apparently, as it caused a minor stir and some good back and forth, the report said.
“Getting between stars is a huge problem unless we think of something really, really different,” Edelstein said. “I’m not saying that we know everything and that it’s impossible. I’m saying it’s kind of impossible based on what we know right now.
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Dark Matter found underground!
Scientists may have caught their first ever glimpse of “dark matter” – the mysterious, invisible substance that makes up three quarters of the matter of the universe.Traces of two “dark matter particles” were picked up by highly sensitive detectors buried 2,000 ft below the ground at the bottom of an old iron mine, researchers report today.
The scientists say there is a three in four chance that the observations are genuine particles of dark matter, rather than just background noise.
Discovery: Scientists believe they have found particles of ‘dark matter’, illustrated here in a computer-generated image (the ‘dark matter’ is in pink)
………………Researchers have been looking for traces of Wimps for the last nine years at the bottom of a disused Soudan iron mine in Minnesota.
The experiment uses 30 detectors, frozen to minus 273.1C designed to spot the traces of Wimps after they have bounced into an ordinary atom.
The experiment is buried so deep because Wimps – unlike particles from space – can pass straight through the thick layers of earth and rock.
The researchers report in the journal Science that they have spotted two traces of Wimps. However, they need to find more before they can be certain they have found the elusive dark matter particle.
Dr Tarek Saab, from the University of Florida at Gainesville, said: ‘Many people believe we are extremely close – not just us, but other experiments. It is expected or certainly hoped that in the next five years or so, someone will see a clear signal.’
But he acknowledged the current evidence was not quite strong enough.
‘With one or two events, it’s tough,’ he said. ‘The numbers are too small.’
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