GRB 190114C was an extreme gamma-ray burst explosion from a galaxy 4.5 billion light years away (z=0.4245;[2] magnitude=15.60est[3]) near the Fornax constellation,[4][5][6] that was initially detected in January 2019.[3][7] The afterglow light emitted soon after the burst was found to be tera-electron volt radiation from inverse Compton emission, identified for the first time.[8] According to the astronomers, "We observed a huge range of frequencies in the electromagnetic radiation afterglow of GRB 190114C. It is the most extensive to date for a gamma-ray burst."[8] Also, according to other astronomers, "light detected from the object had the highest energy ever observed for a GRB: 1 Tera electron volt (TeV) -- about one trillion times as much energy per photon as visible light";[4] another source stated, "the brightest light ever seen from Earth [to date].".[9]
Event type | Gamma-ray burst |
---|---|
Right ascension | 03h 38m 1.63s[1] |
Declination | −26° 56′ 48.1″[1] |
Redshift | 0.4245 ±0.0005 |
Other designations | GRB 190114C |
Related media on Commons | |
Recent publications following the event indicate that inverse Compton scattering is the mechanism responsible for producing TeV photons.[8] X-ray photons are scattered off of the GRB's polar jets of electrons, which move at 0.9999c. In a scattering event, much of the energy of a relativistic electron is transferred to a photon.[10][11][12][13] Researchers "have been trying to observe such very high energy emission from GRB's for a long time, so this detection is considered a milestone in high-energy astrophysics".[4][14] The most recent studies propose, in summary, a model of binary system of hypernova (BdHN I) with two neutron stars, where one of them collapses in a black hole, surrounded by an accretion disk and from whose poles the GRB is launched.[15][16]