![]() The Hubble Space Telescope caught the fading afterglow of GRB 190114C and its home galaxy on February 11 and March 12, 2019. The difference between these images reveals a faint, short-lived glow (center of the green circle) located about 800 light-years from the galaxy’s core. Blue colors beyond the core signal the presence of hot, young stars, indicating that this is a spiral galaxy somewhat similar to our own. The source of the burst is located about 4.5 billion light-years away in the direction of the constellation Fornax. | |
Event type | Gamma-ray burst |
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Date | c. 4.5 billion years ago (discovered January 2019) |
Right ascension | 03h 38m 1.63s [1] |
Declination | −26° 56′ 48.1″ [1] |
Distance | c. 4.5 billion ly |
Redshift | 0.4245 ±0.0005 |
Other designations | GRB 190114C |
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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]
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 99.99% the speed of light. 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]
Fornax is a constellation in the southern celestial hemisphere, partly ringed by the celestial river Eridanus. Its name is Latin for furnace. It was named by French astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille in 1756. Fornax is one of the 88 modern constellations.
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