Tag: colossal
Colossal space explosion is the most powerful humans have ever seen
Astronomers knew the space explosion last fall was huge.
A blast mighty enough to overload many cosmic explosion detection instruments is certainly something our satellites and telescopes don’t see every year. “It’s a very unique event,” Yvette Cendes, an astronomer and postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, told Mashable in October 2022. Now, with months of follow-up research, astronomers have concluded that such bright light (or radiation) from this gamma-ray burst — the most powerful known type of explosion in the cosmos, and strong enough to create a black hole — likely hasn’t arrived at Earth in thousands of years.
“GRB 221009A was likely the brightest burst at X-ray and gamma-ray energies to occur since human civilization began,” Eric Burns, an assistant professor of physics and astronomy at Louisiana State University who worked on the new research, said in a NASA statement.
In the latest batch of research, published this week in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, scientists scrutinized around 7,000 detected gamma-ray bursts to deduce the odds of seeing such a fantastically bright event. The answer: We’ll likely only observe such a gamma-ray burst once in every 10,000 years.
So this was extremely bright. Some dub GRB 221009A as the “BOAT” — the “brightest of all time.” But, as with other distant space explosions, you need not worry. Yes, radiation from the blast passed through our solar system and allowed us to detect an event that happened 1.9 billion light-years away (meaning it took 1.9 billion years to arrive here). But this radiation has been spreading through space for eons, and it is so faint that sensitive instruments like NASA‘s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope are required to even pick up these signals. We’re watching, but we’re unaffected by the light.
“It’s the equivalent of getting front row seats at a fireworks show,” Cendes told Mashable last year.
What caused this giant space explosion?
The gamma-ray burst GRB 221009A trumped such previous explosions. Most instruments designed to detect this type of light couldn’t handle the anomalously extreme radiation. “The burst was so bright it effectively blinded most gamma-ray instruments in space, which means they could not directly record the real intensity of the emission,” NASA explained. Fortunately, scientists used other data from the space agency’s Fermi telescope to reconstruct the gamma-ray radiation.
Here’s how unusual the event was:
Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center / Adam Goldstein (USRA)
What might cause such a giant blast? A giant star collapsing, and then likely exploding.
An exploded star, after running out of fuel and collapsing on itself, is called a supernova. And for a star to go supernova, it must be quite massive — at least eight times the size of the sun. But for a supernova to produce the strongest type of gamma-ray burst, the star must be 30 to 40 times the size of the sun. This recent powerful detection came from such a mighty star.
And we saw it because a jet of light or radiation emitted from the blast happened to be directed toward Earth. That’s part of why it appeared so bright.
Scientists are certain that a collapsing star triggered the blast. But what happened next is still uncertain. Did the star collapse, explode, and then under such dramatic pressure, form a powerful black hole — an object so dense and massive that not even light can escape its powerful grasp? The researchers watching this gamma-ray burst have not seen evidence of the star’s explosion, yet. That means there’s potential that the colossal star collapsed into a black hole, without a giant explosion. The rapidly forming black hole, too, would have ejected immense energy into space.
Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
“We cannot say conclusively that there is a supernova, which is surprising given the burst’s brightness,” Andrew Levan, a professor of astrophysics at Radboud University in Nijmegen, Netherlands, who researched the event, said in a statement. “If it’s there, it’s very faint. We plan to keep looking,” Levan explained, “but it’s possible the entire star collapsed straight into the black hole instead of exploding.”
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Scientists, using powerful telescopes, will keep watching this curious development in the deep universe. The cosmos are mysterious, and full of unfathomable explosions, but the scientific goal is to make them a bit less mysterious.
Forget Elden Ring DLC – this colossal mod transforms it into an MMO
If you’re excited for the Elden Ring DLC Shadow of the Erdtree but can’t wait to experience more of the open-world game, the Eldenlands mod is for you. Completely revamping Elden Ring with its own set of DLC on the way, Eldenlands wants to make FromSoftware’s magnum opus a little more like MMOs and traditional RPGs, with plenty of colossal changes and swathes of new content.
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Fallout leads colossal Bethesda Steam sale of nearly 100 games
A massive Bethesda Steam sale is offering up great deals on plenty of games the developer and publisher is known for, including Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Doom, Dishonored, and much more. So if you’re a fan of RPG games, immersive sims, or hectic shooters, there’s more than likely something for you in this sale while you wait for the Fallout 5 release date.
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Chris Brown Adds SIXTH London Show to ‘Under The Influence Tour’ Due to Colossal Demand
London loves Chris Brown! And the performer is reciprocating in a major way.
The superstar ignited a wave of excitement across the UK and Europe upon announcing his ‘Under The Influence Tour.’
And, as the arena trek nears its kick-off, the high-octane performer has had to add a multitude of new dates to his itinerary due to overwhelming demand.
The post Chris Brown Adds SIXTH London Show to ‘Under The Influence Tour’ Due to Colossal Demand appeared first on ..::That Grape Juice.net::.. – Thirsty?.
Q&A with Roberta & Ken Williams, developers of reimagined Colossal Cave, out today
A colossal Wear OS calendar upgrade — Google Pixel Watch and beyond
Google’s Pixel Watch has plenty of good things goin’ for it. But one part of the Wear OS software that remains decidedly meh is its system calendar integration.
It’s a frustrating limitation not just for the Pixel Watch but for Wear OS on the whole and virtually any associated gadget. Somewhat shockingly, for a company that claims Google Calendar as one of its most popular and important productivity products, Google has yet to grace its wearable operating system with any meaningful agenda-interacting interfaces.
Now, sure, you can always check in on upcoming events or make appointments on your watch via voice command — but try to add an actual calendar tile into your watch’s swipeable mix of at-a-glance info panels, and your only real option is something like this:
Colliding neutron stars create ‘paradigm-shifting’ colossal flash
Classic adventure game Colossal Cave returns remade in 3D in 2023
Ken and Roberta Williams’ text adventure gets new ‘interpretation’ on console, PC, and VR
Victoria 3 patch 1.1 is here with a colossal amount of changes
Paradox has released Victoria 3 patch 1.1, which includes some feature reworks, balance changes, AI fixes, new content, and plenty of major and minor bug fixes for the grand strategy game. If everything we talk about from Victoria 2 patch 1.1 sounds like a bit too much, we’ve got a Victoria 3 beginner’s guide to help you get to grips with all of the complex systems first.
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