On March 15, 2024, the Space Observatory detected a burst of low-energy X-rays from deep in the ancient universe fluctuating in brightness for more than 17 minutes before fading. About an hour later, ground-based telescopes will receive visible light from the same source, tracing it back to when the universe was only about a billion years old.
at Newly launched Einstein probe A distant explosion is being discovered with the potential to change what we know about the universe's earliest years. By using wide-field X-ray telescopes, the spacecraft detected so-called soft, or low-energy, X-rays, which last for an unusually long time. These events are known as Fast X-ray transients (FXRT) and the newly formed explosions have been designated EP240315A.
After monitoring the explosion at Radio Wavellengths for three months, the team of astronomers behind the detection confirmed that the energy output corresponds to a gamma-ray burst dating back to when the universe was only 10 percent of its current age. So, at approximately 13.8 billion years of age of the universe, the explosion occurred when the universe was approximately 1.38 billion years old.
“These results show that a significant portion of FXRTs may be involved in “Gamma-ray bursts (gamma ray bursts) and sensitive X-ray monitors such as the Einstein probe can identify them in distant universes,” said Roberto Ricci, a researcher at KU. University of Rome, Tor Vergata, Italy and one of the authors behind paper Details of the discovery are mentioned in the statement– “Combining the power of x-ray and radio surveys gives us a new way to survey these ancient explosions, even though their gamma rays have not been detected.”
EP240315A is the first time soft X-rays from an ancient, long-lasting explosion have been detected. Follow-up observations using the Gemini-North Telescope in Hawaii and the Very Large Telescope measuring visible light from the same location confirmed that the explosion came from about 12.5 billion light years away.
Gamma-ray bursts are literally flashes of high-energy light and the most powerful explosions in the universe, typically caused by the collapse of a massive star or the merger of a neutron star. Those explosions are known to release large amounts of X-rays. The recently discovered X-rays were traced back to GRB 240315C, a gamma ray that was first detected by the Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) on NASA's Neil Hrgles Swift Observatory, with additional data from the Konus instrument. On NASA's wind spacecraft NASA
Although gamma ray bursts are related to X-rays, X-rays usually precede gamma rays by a few tens of seconds, but EP240315A was blessed with more than six minutes (372 seconds) ahead of GRB 240315C. “Such a long delay had not been observed before,” said Hui Sun, a team member from the center. Einstein Investigation Science at the National Astronomical Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and co-authors of the new study said in a statement.
The mystery behind the long period between X-rays and gamma-ray bursts aside from the long periods of X-rays, it is reasonable to ask whether gamma-ray bursts explode the way scientists believe the theme. no
The Einstein Probe, an X-ray telescope managed by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and built in collaboration with the European Space Agency and the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, launched on January 9, 2024, in x-ray light in The tube is square in grid, which means that 3,600 square degrees (under one tenth of the celestial sphere) can be observed in a single shot.
“As soon as we opened the Einstein Probe's eye into the sky, an interesting new phenomenon was discovered,” Erik Kuulkers, ESA's Einstein project scientist, said in a statement. “That's pretty cool and should mean there are many more interesting discoveries to come.”