Recording breaking GRB still shining beacon

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Recording breaking GRB still shining beacon
BY EMILY BALDWIN
ASTRONOMY NOW
Posted: April 15, 2008

Almost one month ago, the Swift space telescope captured the explosion of a powerful Gamma Ray Burst (GRB), the brightest naked-eye object ever seen from Earth (see news story posted on March 25: Super-bright gamma ray burst visible to naked eye). Recent Hubble observations show that the light from this GRB is still drowning out the galaxy’s light today.

The observation has surprised astronomers, who find it more usual for bright bursts to fade away more rapidly because they emit their energy in a tightly confined beam. The nature of the slow fading puts a question mark over where the energy is coming from to power this GRB, and makes Hubble’s next observations of this object in May all the more crucial.

Hubble Space Telescope image, taken on 7 April, of the fading optical counterpart of the GRB that erupted on 19 March. Image: NASA, ESA, N. Tanvir (University of Leicester), A. Fruchter (STScI).