It’s the BOAT: Astronomers observe “brightest of all time” gamma ray burst

It's a "once-in-a-century opportunity" to address fundamental questions of these bursts.

Read the whole story

 

[Wheels Of Confusion]

BOATED

Who is going to come up with the best 'Boaty McBoatface' reference?

Brightest Of All Timey McBrightest Of All Timeface!

 

[reever]

"Kilonova." And i thought Aldo nova was a good band.

WTF is going on in these comments???

One person basically does a written react video in a post (who cares about one persons trivial reaction to a trivial word???) and it spawns over a dozen tangential comments

 

[Veritas super omens]

"Kilonova." And i thought Aldo nova was a good band.

WTF is going on in these comments???

One person basically does a written react video in a post (who cares about one persons trivial reaction to a trivial word???) and it spawns over a dozen tangential comments

Good things can happen where the tangent kisses the curve...

 

[Wickwick]

"Kilonova." And i thought Aldo nova was a good band.

WTF is going on in these comments???

One person basically does a written react video in a post (who cares about one persons trivial reaction to a trivial word???) and it spawns over a dozen tangential comments

Welcome to Ars?

 

[Demosthenes642]

Am I the only one who saw that star field GIF out of the corner of their vision and, not realizing it was a GIF, wondered why their eyes weren't focusing right?

 

[Aldaros]

'Kilonova' has to be one of the stupider neologisms created by contemporary scientists, most of whom sadly lack the training in the classics of earlier generations. What, after all, does it mean? 'A thousand new-something-or-others'. Not at all descriptive. I mean, 'hypernova' might have been better, if it hadn't already been taken. Maybe 'conjunova' or something could have worked, as it at least implies the concept of merging.

In any event, it's just as with 'television': half Greek and half Latin, no good can come of it.

Greek? Latin? Anglo-Saxon? French? What kind of sick mind would mash those up into a language?

... oh. The English.

Small but rather important point, the term television was coined by Constantin Perskyi, a Russian. In addition the term Kilanova was coined by Brian Metzger, an American. Hey why bother with those pesky facts

And if we want to get really pedantic, we could note that Perskyi first used that term while giving a presentation in French. So television is an example of English adapting a French word coined by a Russian and derived from a mix of Greek and Latin roots.

Which leads us back to the real point; namely, that English is an unholy mess of many different languages mashed together into one, and that anyone complaining about the purity of the language is about a thousand years too late.

 

[CrystalCowboy]

"Kilonova." And i thought Aldo nova was a good band.

WTF is going on in these comments???

One person basically does a written react video in a post (who cares about one persons trivial reaction to a trivial word???) and it spawns over a dozen tangential comments

You say that like it's a bad thing

 

[HiggsForce]

I was curious what the odds of a gamma ray burst that could be an extinction level-event would be. From some basic googling, I found that it's thought the odds of Earth getting hit by one of these, even over the course of the entire solar system's life, was remote. I also found that the gamm ray burst itself would only be a few times larger than the diameter of Earth, which of course, helps explain why it's such an unlikely event for us.

Gamma ray bursts are directional, but not that directional. At galactic distances they're light-years wide, which is somewhat larger than "a few times larger than the diameter of the Earth".

 

[Imbrium]

'Kilonova' has to be one of the stupider neologisms created by contemporary scientists, most of whom sadly lack the training in the classics of earlier generations. What, after all, does it mean? 'A thousand new-something-or-others'. Not at all descriptive. I mean, 'hypernova' might have been better, if it hadn't already been taken. Maybe 'conjunova' or something could have worked, as it at least implies the concept of merging.

In any event, it's just as with 'television': half Greek and half Latin, no good can come of it.

Greek? Latin? Anglo-Saxon? French? What kind of sick mind would mash those up into a language?

... oh. The English.

Small but rather important point, the term television was coined by Constantin Perskyi, a Russian. In addition the term Kilanova was coined by Brian Metzger, an American. Hey why bother with those pesky facts

And if we want to get really pedantic, we could note that Perskyi first used that term while giving a presentation in French. So television is an example of English adapting a French word coined by a Russian and derived from a mix of Greek and Latin roots.

Which leads us back to the real point; namely, that English is an unholy mess of many different languages mashed together into one, and that anyone complaining about the purity of the language is about a thousand years too late.

Maybe we need to take a fresh look at Esperanto?

 

[sbuso]

'Kilonova' has to be one of the stupider neologisms created by contemporary scientists, most of whom sadly lack the training in the classics of earlier generations. What, after all, does it mean? 'A thousand new-something-or-others'. Not at all descriptive. I mean, 'hypernova' might have been better, if it hadn't already been taken. Maybe 'conjunova' or something could have worked, as it at least implies the concept of merging.

In any event, it's just as with 'television': half Greek and half Latin, no good can come of it.

Greek? Latin? Anglo-Saxon? French? What kind of sick mind would mash those up into a language?

... oh. The English.

Small but rather important point, the term television was coined by Constantin Perskyi, a Russian. In addition the term Kilanova was coined by Brian Metzger, an American. Hey why bother with those pesky facts

And if we want to get really pedantic, we could note that Perskyi first used that term while giving a presentation in French. So television is an example of English adapting a French word coined by a Russian and derived from a mix of Greek and Latin roots.

Which leads us back to the real point; namely, that English is an unholy mess of many different languages mashed together into one, and that anyone complaining about the purity of the language is about a thousand years too late.

I'm always surprised by other languages, where the spelling has something to do with the pronunciation

 

[Faceless Man]

'Kilonova' has to be one of the stupider neologisms created by contemporary scientists, most of whom sadly lack the training in the classics of earlier generations. What, after all, does it mean? 'A thousand new-something-or-others'. Not at all descriptive. I mean, 'hypernova' might have been better, if it hadn't already been taken. Maybe 'conjunova' or something could have worked, as it at least implies the concept of merging.

In any event, it's just as with 'television': half Greek and half Latin, no good can come of it.

Greek? Latin? Anglo-Saxon? French? What kind of sick mind would mash those up into a language?

... oh. The English.

Small but rather important point, the term television was coined by Constantin Perskyi, a Russian. In addition the term Kilanova was coined by Brian Metzger, an American. Hey why bother with those pesky facts

And if we want to get really pedantic, we could note that Perskyi first used that term while giving a presentation in French. So television is an example of English adapting a French word coined by a Russian and derived from a mix of Greek and Latin roots.

Which leads us back to the real point; namely, that English is an unholy mess of many different languages mashed together into one, and that anyone complaining about the purity of the language is about a thousand years too late.

Maybe we need to take a fresh look at Esperanto?

No need to go that far.

The thing about these words, regardless of their origin, is that they are now English words, so it doesn't really matter if they're hybridised from two other root languages.

 

[dr_lha]

So if the jets had not been pointed at us would we not have observed it at all?

I'd say towards us not at us. The beam's about ten degrees wide. But I think we might still see something at greater angles. Maybe just the subsequent x ray and uv emissions and only if someone happened to be looking in the right direction. But I can't see such an energetic event being totally invisible due to beaming.

You're talking about an "orphan" afterglow, where you don't see the prompt emission because of being off axis, but do see the afterglow. We have found some of these, mostly using optical surveys like ZTF, and I'm sure Vera Rubin will see loads. I will say, for this GRB, Swift triggered on the afterglow, and not the prompt emission (because the Earth was in the way when it went off for Swift). That is a first, we've never had an afterglow bright enough to trigger Swift's autonomous follow-up, so maybe an orphan afterglow could have triggered Swift in a similar way. However, that does raise the question, why haven't we triggered on such an event in 18 years of Swift operations, if such bright ones exist off-axis. After all, there are way more off-axis GRBs than on-axis ones.

 

[dr_lha]

I was curious what the odds of a gamma ray burst that could be an extinction level-event would be. From some basic googling, I found that it's thought the odds of Earth getting hit by one of these, even over the course of the entire solar system's life, was remote. I also found that the gamm ray burst itself would only be a few times larger than the diameter of Earth, which of course, helps explain why it's such an unlikely event for us.

People are always worried about GRBs killing them, answer is: not likely. Magnetars are what you should be worried about. Back 2004, SGR 1806, which is in our own Galaxy, went of and dumped about 100x as much energy on the Earth as this guy did. If SGR 1806 was local to us, it would have ended all life on Earth. We know around 40 Magnetars in our Galaxy, and there are bound to be load more lurking, we discover about 2 new ones every year.

 

[Burned]

If gamma ray astronomy and its close cousin gravitational wave search interest you, please join other Ars citizen scientists as we analyze Fermi LAT and LIGO gravitational wave data in the Einstein@Home project. We're hanging out in the DC Arcana section of the forums along with our computational biology brethren. Our home thread is here.

 

[Burned]

Double

 

[bthylafh]

"Kilonova." And i thought Aldo nova was a good band.

WTF is going on in these comments???

One person basically does a written react video in a post (who cares about one persons trivial reaction to a trivial word???) and it spawns over a dozen tangential comments

Welcome to the Internet, which has been like this since Usenet back in the '80s *at least*.

 

[MST2.021K]

'Kilonova' has to be one of the stupider neologisms created by contemporary scientists, most of whom sadly lack the training in the classics of earlier generations. What, after all, does it mean? 'A thousand new-something-or-others'. Not at all descriptive. I mean, 'hypernova' might have been better, if it hadn't already been taken. Maybe 'conjunova' or something could have worked, as it at least implies the concept of merging.

In any event, it's just as with 'television': half Greek and half Latin, no good can come of it.

Greek? Latin? Anglo-Saxon? French? What kind of sick mind would mash those up into a language?

... oh. The English.

Small but rather important point, the term television was coined by Constantin Perskyi, a Russian. In addition the term Kilanova was coined by Brian Metzger, an American. Hey why bother with those pesky facts

And if we want to get really pedantic, we could note that Perskyi first used that term while giving a presentation in French. So television is an example of English adapting a French word coined by a Russian and derived from a mix of Greek and Latin roots.

Which leads us back to the real point; namely, that English is an unholy mess of many different languages mashed together into one, and that anyone complaining about the purity of the language is about a thousand years too late.

Maybe we need to take a fresh look at Esperanto?

https://xkcd.com/927/

 

[Matthew J.]

GRB 221009A occurred in a galaxy far away from our own Milky Way, and thus had no ill effects on Earth.

Good thing we were out of range of the death star!

 

[kurama101]

BOATED

Who is going to come up with the best 'Boaty McBoatface' reference?

Please let’s try and be a bit more current with our memes

It’s a quirked up black hole BOATed with the sauce busting it down gamma ray style

 

[Hydrargyrum]

GRB 221009A triggered detectors aboard NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, and Wind spacecraft, among others, just as gamma-ray astronomers had gathered for an annual meeting in Johannesburg, South Africa.

I bet it would have been amusing to see everyone's phones pinging with notifications at the same time...

 

[iamdeaththekid]

Oh god no... World Breaker Hulk is coming!

 

[llanitedave]

'Kilonova' has to be one of the stupider neologisms created by contemporary scientists, most of whom sadly lack the training in the classics of earlier generations. What, after all, does it mean? 'A thousand new-something-or-others'. Not at all descriptive. I mean, 'hypernova' might have been better, if it hadn't already been taken. Maybe 'conjunova' or something could have worked, as it at least implies the concept of merging.

In any event, it's just as with 'television': half Greek and half Latin, no good can come of it.

All words consist of arbitrary strings of characters, with meaning assigned by context. Why does it matter what language it derives from?

And the context of "kilo" is linguistic history, real or imagined. In that context, it's wrong regardless of the supposed original language. Whoever proposed the term thought that the word "kilo" already meant something, otherwise they wouldn't have chosen it. But it never meant what they thought it did, so yes, they could just as usefully inserted any random string of phonemes. That would have been better, even, because it wouldn't have left people wondering what the proposer was really trying to say.

edit:

It was named on purpose
Wikipedia wrote:
The term kilonova was introduced by Metzger et al. in 2010 to characterize the peak brightness, which they showed reaches 1000 times that of a classical nova. They are 1⁄10 to 1⁄100 the brightness of a typical supernova, the self-detonation of a massive star

Damn, should have read just a little further. Well, at least we're no longer wondering what they were trying to say.

 

[llanitedave]

'Kilonova' has to be one of the stupider neologisms created by contemporary scientists, most of whom sadly lack the training in the classics of earlier generations. What, after all, does it mean? 'A thousand new-something-or-others'. Not at all descriptive. I mean, 'hypernova' might have been better, if it hadn't already been taken. Maybe 'conjunova' or something could have worked, as it at least implies the concept of merging.

In any event, it's just as with 'television': half Greek and half Latin, no good can come of it.

Greek? Latin? Anglo-Saxon? French? What kind of sick mind would mash those up into a language?

... oh. The English.

Small but rather important point, the term television was coined by Constantin Perskyi, a Russian. In addition the term Kilanova was coined by Brian Metzger, an American. Hey why bother with those pesky facts

And if we want to get really pedantic, we could note that Perskyi first used that term while giving a presentation in French. So television is an example of English adapting a French word coined by a Russian and derived from a mix of Greek and Latin roots.

Which leads us back to the real point; namely, that English is an unholy mess of many different languages mashed together into one, and that anyone complaining about the purity of the language is about a thousand years too late.

And here I thought the real point was the observation of a bright gamma ray burst. Silly me!

 

[linuxophile]

We are going to need a bigger BOAT.

 

[fenncruz]

I was curious what the odds of a gamma ray burst that could be an extinction level-event would be. From some basic googling, I found that it's thought the odds of Earth getting hit by one of these, even over the course of the entire solar system's life, was remote. I also found that the gamm ray burst itself would only be a few times larger than the diameter of Earth, which of course, helps explain why it's such an unlikely event for us.

People are always worried about GRBs killing them, answer is: not likely. Magnetars are what you should be worried about.

People are always worrying about magnetars killing the. Honey badgers are what you should be worried about.

 

[SubWoofer2]

the term Kilanova

This is the term used when a certain Hawaiian volcano erupts explosively?

 

[Chuckstar]

Assumed the jet would rotate as I thought most objects in the universe did.

Looking at the video I'm obv wrong on the first part - so maybe I'm also wrong in the second?

Jets are emitted along the axis of rotation, so are not rotating like a lighthouse beam the way a pulsar’s beam does.

 

[Chuckstar]

I was curious what the odds of a gamma ray burst that could be an extinction level-event would be. From some basic googling, I found that it's thought the odds of Earth getting hit by one of these, even over the course of the entire solar system's life, was remote. I also found that the gamm ray burst itself would only be a few times larger than the diameter of Earth, which of course, helps explain why it's such an unlikely event for us.

People are always worried about GRBs killing them, answer is: not likely. Magnetars are what you should be worried about.

People are always worrying about magnetars killing the. Honey badgers are what you should be worried about.

Although to be fair, neither one cares.

 

[Albino_Boo]

There's a bit of Celtic hiding in the darker corners of the language, too...

English never met a language it didn't want to have a quick stand-up with behind the docks.

We English do love to steal anything of value from any Johnny Foreigner we invade meet.
Off topic, but I found this fascinating when I learnt it:

Wikipedia[/url]":24puk40e]A creole language, or simply creole, is a stable natural language that develops from the simplifying and mixing of different languages into a new one within a fairly brief period of time: often, a pidgin evolved into a full-fledged language.

If it wasn't for the Vikings and Norman invasion, English would be like the Frisian language spoken in the Dutch German border area. English is the product of multiple invasions. Even today 1000 years after the Norman invasion, if you have a Norman surname; you have longer life expectancy, more likely to have a degree and have greater assets.

Just because you have a Norman surname now doesn't mean you have any significant Norman bloodline. As you go back through your family tree, you may find, in fact, that the "prized" Norman surname is a very recent addition to the family tree.

There has been a census taken every 10 years since 1801. Parish records have been a legal requirement since 1538. In a small number of cases, like Kibworth there are records going back to the 13th century. You can actively trace centuries of decent. You are factually incorrect.

 

[Anonymous Chicken]

There's a bit of Celtic hiding in the darker corners of the language, too...

English never met a language it didn't want to have a quick stand-up with behind the docks.

We English do love to steal anything of value from any Johnny Foreigner we invade meet.
Off topic, but I found this fascinating when I learnt it:

Wikipedia[/url]":aobczkbk]A creole language, or simply creole, is a stable natural language that develops from the simplifying and mixing of different languages into a new one within a fairly brief period of time: often, a pidgin evolved into a full-fledged language.

If it wasn't for the Vikings and Norman invasion, English would be like the Frisian language spoken in the Dutch German border area. English is the product of multiple invasions. Even today 1000 years after the Norman invasion, if you have a Norman surname; you have longer life expectancy, more likely to have a degree and have greater assets.

Is that a real thing, or perhaps cherry-picking of statistics? For example, Norman surname vs not-Norman surname, with the latter being mixed with all the recent immigrants.

 

[Albino_Boo]

There's a bit of Celtic hiding in the darker corners of the language, too...

English never met a language it didn't want to have a quick stand-up with behind the docks.

We English do love to steal anything of value from any Johnny Foreigner we invade meet.
Off topic, but I found this fascinating when I learnt it:

Wikipedia[/url]":3rdhll9x]A creole language, or simply creole, is a stable natural language that develops from the simplifying and mixing of different languages into a new one within a fairly brief period of time: often, a pidgin evolved into a full-fledged language.

If it wasn't for the Vikings and Norman invasion, English would be like the Frisian language spoken in the Dutch German border area. English is the product of multiple invasions. Even today 1000 years after the Norman invasion, if you have a Norman surname; you have longer life expectancy, more likely to have a degree and have greater assets.

Is that a real thing, or perhaps cherry-picking of statistics? For example, Norman surname vs not-Norman surname, with the latter being mixed with all the recent immigrants.

Apart from the small but important point that Chinese, Indian and mixed race people all earn on average more than white British.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlab ... itain/2018

 

[Anonymous Chicken]

There's a bit of Celtic hiding in the darker corners of the language, too...

English never met a language it didn't want to have a quick stand-up with behind the docks.

We English do love to steal anything of value from any Johnny Foreigner we invade meet.
Off topic, but I found this fascinating when I learnt it:

Wikipedia[/url]":16z6sld6]A creole language, or simply creole, is a stable natural language that develops from the simplifying and mixing of different languages into a new one within a fairly brief period of time: often, a pidgin evolved into a full-fledged language.

If it wasn't for the Vikings and Norman invasion, English would be like the Frisian language spoken in the Dutch German border area. English is the product of multiple invasions. Even today 1000 years after the Norman invasion, if you have a Norman surname; you have longer life expectancy, more likely to have a degree and have greater assets.

Is that a real thing, or perhaps cherry-picking of statistics? For example, Norman surname vs not-Norman surname, with the latter being mixed with all the recent immigrants.

Apart from the small but important point that Chinese, Indian and mixed race people all earn on average more than white British.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlab ... itain/2018

Thanks for the link. Lots of information in there. Do you have anything about the Norman surname claim? I thought that was particularly interesting, if supported.

Now I feel bad even asking into it. I see there are scientific papers. Oh well, maybe some bedtime reading....

 

[Veritas super omens]

We are going to need a bigger BOAT.

But not too bright. We want the observers to survive the event!

 

[azazel1024]

There's a bit of Celtic hiding in the darker corners of the language, too...

English never met a language it didn't want to have a quick stand-up with behind the docks.

We English do love to steal anything of value from any Johnny Foreigner we invade meet.
Off topic, but I found this fascinating when I learnt it:

Wikipedia[/url]":3c1l1xov]A creole language, or simply creole, is a stable natural language that develops from the simplifying and mixing of different languages into a new one within a fairly brief period of time: often, a pidgin evolved into a full-fledged language.

So I guess English is not a creole.

Because one thing English does not do is simplify anything.

 

[Wheels Of Confusion]

We are going to need a bigger BOAT.

But not too bright. We want the observers to survive the event!

It's thinking like this that's holding us back as a species! Fortune favors the bold!

 

[Imbrium]

There's a bit of Celtic hiding in the darker corners of the language, too...

English never met a language it didn't want to have a quick stand-up with behind the docks.

We English do love to steal anything of value from any Johnny Foreigner we invade meet.
Off topic, but I found this fascinating when I learnt it:

Wikipedia[/url]":10hf1auf]A creole language, or simply creole, is a stable natural language that develops from the simplifying and mixing of different languages into a new one within a fairly brief period of time: often, a pidgin evolved into a full-fledged language.

If it wasn't for the Vikings and Norman invasion, English would be like the Frisian language spoken in the Dutch German border area. English is the product of multiple invasions. Even today 1000 years after the Norman invasion, if you have a Norman surname; you have longer life expectancy, more likely to have a degree and have greater assets.

Just because you have a Norman surname now doesn't mean you have any significant Norman bloodline. As you go back through your family tree, you may find, in fact, that the "prized" Norman surname is a very recent addition to the family tree.

There has been a census taken every 10 years since 1801. Parish records have been a legal requirement since 1538. In a small number of cases, like Kibworth there are records going back to the 13th century. You can actively trace centuries of decent. You are factually incorrect.

No, you may have your Norman surname only as a result of marriage. I have traced my family tree in England back to the mid-15th century, and before that, I can't find my surname, although I know it is of Norman origin. However, there's a hell of a lot of other surnames that show up during that time, And marrying into people with that surname. And that says nothing of cases of divorce/death of a spouse and remarriage.

 

[Veritas super omens]

We are going to need a bigger BOAT.

But not too bright. We want the observers to survive the event!

It's thinking like this that's holding us back as a species! Fortune favors the bold!

As long as the bold have SPF 85,000 sunscreen?

 

[Auguste_Fivaz]

Meanwhile, Dr. Andrew Klekociuk in Tasmania detected this ground wave from the burst.

Klekociuk's unusual "ham rig" uses Earth itself as a giant antenna. In his back garden there are two metal spikes stuck into the ground 75 meters apart.

That's some back garden!

 

[Faceless Man]

I was curious what the odds of a gamma ray burst that could be an extinction level-event would be. From some basic googling, I found that it's thought the odds of Earth getting hit by one of these, even over the course of the entire solar system's life, was remote. I also found that the gamm ray burst itself would only be a few times larger than the diameter of Earth, which of course, helps explain why it's such an unlikely event for us.

People are always worried about GRBs killing them, answer is: not likely. Magnetars are what you should be worried about.

People are always worrying about magnetars killing the. Honey badgers are what you should be worried about.

Although to be fair, neither one cares.

Also, by the time you noticed either one, it's probably too late to do anything about it.

 

[fcrary]

Meanwhile, Dr. Andrew Klekociuk in Tasmania detected this ground wave from the burst.

Klekociuk's unusual "ham rig" uses Earth itself as a giant antenna. In his back garden there are two metal spikes stuck into the ground 75 meters apart.

That's some back garden!

That's sort of scary. Given the timescales, I think that has to be from a transient change in the conductivity of the ionosphere. That would take a huge energy flux.