Astronomers collected data from the space telescope on the same day in October 2022 and compared it with measurements from satellites monitoring the state of Earth’s atmosphere. Scientists’ discoveries are surprising.
This phenomenon was recorded by multiple space telescopes on October 9, 2022. For example, the Swift Observatory, which flies around the Earth at an altitude of about 600 kilometers, the Fermi telescope (orbital altitude – 550 kilometers, approximately the same as Hubble), launched from Baikonur, and the Russian Space Research Institute, which flies around the Earth at an altitude of about 90,000 to 150,000 kilometers. proposed and calculated different trajectories. It must be said that the characteristics of the detected events were mainly evaluated using his INTEGRAL data. All of these devices are equipped with gamma-ray capture devices. Gamma rays, like all electromagnetic radiation in general, are the effects of the same photons that give rise to visible light, the only difference being that the photons can have different energies. What we can perceive as the colors of the rainbow are relatively weak photons. These affect the iris, but cannot damage it. However, gamma rays are produced by photons with enormous energy. They “shoot” atoms of any material that comes into their path, knocking electrons out of them. That is, it destroys the normal structure. This is the effect of “radiation”. Scientists call X-rays and gamma rays ionizing because atoms lacking at least one “legitimate” electron are ions.
In other words, what the space telescope recorded was a gamma-ray burst, a sudden flash of gamma rays somewhere in space. But the most surprising thing is that not only was it caught somewhere far outside the Earth, but its influence was also felt in the Earth’s atmosphere. In particular, this was recorded by the Chinese and Italian CSES satellites (flying at an altitude of about 500 kilometers). What he accurately recorded was that gamma rays hit atoms near the Earth, knocking out electrons, and as a result a suspiciously large amount of free electrons began to flow over the Earth, and their density increased significantly for some time. It was something. According to the published data, after this gamma-ray burst, it was observed not only at an altitude of 500 kilometers, but also at an altitude of only 60-100 kilometers, that is, in the mesosphere, where meteors already burn out. Star shower. ”
These electrons appear to be simply insignificant. The same thing happens, for example, in the atmosphere under the influence of the Sun (which is now approaching) at its peak of activity, and because of this electron havoc, electrons collide into international space and become more aggressively positioned. and forces you to descend faster. Therefore, during solar maximum periods, the ISS’s orbit needs to be raised many times more often than during quiet periods. And that’s despite the fact that the ISS remains at an altitude of just over 400 kilometers. However, this gamma burst lasted only 7 minutes for him, so it is not important to the ISS. These seven minutes allow astronomers to draw some very interesting conclusions. In fact, the cause can be determined based on the duration of the epidemic. For example, if a gamma-ray burst lasted only a few seconds, scientists would say that either two neutron stars, or a black hole and a neutron star, collided and merged. However, after a supernova explosion, in which an “old” star “burns out” and sheds its shell, gamma rays appear over a period of minutes to hours. At the same time, their cores collapse, shrinking to a size of tens of kilometers (like an asteroid!) and becoming either neutron stars or black holes. For example, if a star’s “lifetime” mass was 15 times that of the Sun’s, what is left behind is a neutron star. If it’s even bigger, it’s a black hole. The more massive a star is, the more powerful the supernova explosion it causes at the end of its “life path.”
The October 2022 gamma-ray burst turned out to be one of the most powerful in the history of space observations. From this, scientists conclude that this star was most likely formed as a result of the explosion of a very massive star, whose center became a black hole. And here’s another surprising detail. According to astronomers, the source of lightning – the location of this supernova explosion – is more than 2 billion light years away from us. It turns out that a black hole that has just appeared in space can attack the Earth’s atmosphere even from this distance due to the energy of its explosion.
source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-42551-5