The Institute of High Energy Physics (IHEP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), together with some 40 research institutions worldwide, has released their latest discoveries on the brightest gamma-ray burst (dubbed as GRB 221009A) ever detected by humans.
The Institute of High Energy Physics (IHEP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), together with some 40 research institutions worldwide, has released their latest discoveries on the brightest gamma-ray burst (dubbed as GRB 221009A) ever detected by humans.
With the unique observations made by two Chinese space telescopes, namely Insight-HXMT and GECAM-C, scientists were able to accurately measure how bright the burst was and how much energy it released, which is the key to understand this historical event.
For this historic gamma-ray burst, another ground-based facility led by IHEP, Large High Altitude Air Shower Observatory (LHAASO), carried out joint observation with Insight-HXMT and the GECAM-C telescopes. LHAASO made several important first discoveries with its large amount of very high energy observation data, which will be reported later.
As the most energetic explosion phenomenon in the universe, GRBs could be produced by the core collapse of a massive star, which typically lasts longer than two seconds, or the merger of two compact stars, such as neutron stars and black holes, which typically lasts less than two seconds and usually emits gravitational waves.
