Scientists have uncovered evidence showing that a gamma ray burst may have irradiated the Earth over 1200 years ago.
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In this scenario, the gamma ray burst was caused by a large, comet-like object that fell into a neutron star.
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That debris would not only have produced the gamma ray burst, but also some X-ray emissions that were also observed from the explosion.
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Fusa Miyake discovered Carbon-14 and Beryllium-10 traces in tree rings from the era, which point to a gamma ray burst from a celestial body other than the Sun.
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After analyzing the data, one team of scientists has concluded that the most likely scenario for this gamma ray burst is that it was the result of a collision between two neutron stars or a neutron star and a black hole.
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In the hours after this unusual gamma-ray burst was discovered, astrophysicists rushed to learn more.
This evidence is suggestive that rather than a typical supernova, this was actually a gamma-ray burst.
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To detect and explain this previously unknown type of gamma-ray burst is a real achievement for the University of Warwick.
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But for a short-lived event such as a gamma-ray burst it means that the same blast may become visible again in the future.
Researchers working on the Nasa mission say the extraordinary longevity of the gamma-ray burst may force them to change their theories about how these colossal blasts work.
The work was reported in mid-October by Jay Norris, an astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, at the Fifth Huntsville (Alabama) Gamma-Ray Burst Symposium.
"This is the most spectacular burst ever seen at high energy, " said Dr Valerie Connaughton, a scientist from the University of Alabama, Huntsville, and a member of Fermi's Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM) instrument team.
Compelling independent corroboration would come from a spacecraft that can see the burst of gamma-ray radiation expected to accompany the cataclysmic events that produce gravitational waves.
Just nine days later, the bright nearby burst happened, leading to the Fermi detection of the highest energy gamma-ray ever.
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