The most powerful gamma ray burst to hit the Earth has been discovered

G-ray bursts, which the scientific community calls GRBs (gamma-ray bursts), are concentrations of concentrated gamma radiation that are created during the birth of neutron stars or black holes, from violent cosmic phenomena such as neutron star collisions, from supernova explosions, from collapsing stars. Also a result of the destruction of neutron stars by black holes. G-ray bursts are bursts of extremely high-energy gamma photons, which radiate millions of times brighter than the Sun.

C-ray blasts are hostile to life, and if an explosion occurred close to us and the radiation hit our planet, the effects would be expected to be devastating for animals, plants and, of course, humans. In fact, the mass extinction of life 440 million years ago has been linked to the arrival of an X-ray burst to Earth.

The most powerful gamma-ray burst ever has hit Earth, raising questions about the consequences a star explosion could have on our planet. On October 9, 2022 at 3:21 PM Greek time, an extremely bright and long-lasting GRB was detected by several satellites in Earth orbit, including the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Integrated Space Telescope, which detects such bursts.

This explosion, called GRB 221009A, was anything but ordinary. “This was probably the brightest gamma-ray burst we have ever detected,” says Mirco Piersanti of the University of L’Aquila in Italy, lead author of the team that published these results today in the journal Nature Communications. One of the authors, Pietro Ubertini of the National Institute of Astrophysics in Rome and principal investigator of Integral’s IBIS instrument, calls it the “strongest” GRB ever measured. Statistically, GRBs of this size only reach Earth once every 10,000 years.

This glow was the result of the explosion of a star about two billion light-years away. The explosion triggered lightning sensors in India, where the peak of the GRB explosion was recorded. The photon stream issued by the flame illuminated Europe, Africa, Asia, and parts of Australia, while devices in Germany detected signs indicating that the Earth’s ionosphere had been disrupted for several hours due to the explosion.

The ionosphere is the layer of the Earth’s upper atmosphere, at an altitude of 50 km to 950 km, containing electrically charged gases (plasma). Ionization stability in the Earth’s atmosphere plays an essential role in the evolution and maintenance of life. In this particular case there was a strong change in the electric field on the upper side of the ionosphere and an increase in ionization on the lower side of the ionosphere.

The European Space Agency notes that analyzing the impact of the explosion could provide information about mass extinctions in Earth’s history. This particular event also reinforces the idea that a supernova star exploding in our galaxy could have catastrophic consequences, damaging the ozone layer and allowing dangerous ultraviolet radiation from the sun to reach the Earth’s surface.

Naftemporiki.gr with information from APE-MPE