Critical Test Of Gamma Ray Burst Theories

Long and precise follow-up measurements of the X-ray afterglow (AG) of very intense gamma ray bursts (GRBs) provide a critical test of GRB afterglow theories.

Dado & Dar (2016) show that the power-law decline with time of X-ray AG of GRB 130427A, the longest measured X-ray AG of an intense GRB with the Swift, Chandra and XMM Newton satellites, and of all other well measured late-time X-ray afterglow of intense GRBs, is that predicted by the cannonball (CB) model of GRBs from their measured spectral index, while it disagrees with that predicted by the widely accepted fireball (FB) models of GRBs.

Dado & Dar 2016 (preprint) - Critical Test Of Gamma Ray Burst Theories - (arXiv)

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Astrophysics News (March 22)

NO CORRELATION BETWEEN FERMI GBM SIGNAL AND GW150914

Image: Merging black holes. Credit: NASA Recently it has been suggested that electromagnetic signals detected by Fermi GBM could be associated with the merger of the two black holes detected by LIGO ( GW150914 ).

Scientists detect comets outside our solar system

An artist’s conception of a view from within the Exocomet system KIC 3542116. Credit: Danielle Futselaar Team of professional and citizen scientists identifies tails of comets streaking past a distant star Jennifer Chu | MIT News Office Scientists from MIT and other institutions, working closely with amateur astronomers, have spotted the dusty tails of six exocomets — comets outside our solar system — orbiting a faint star 800 light years from Earth. These cosmic balls of ice and dust, which were about the size of Halley’s Comet and traveled about 100,000 miles per hour before they ultimately vaporized, are some of the smallest objects yet found outside our own solar system. The discovery marks the first time that an object as small as a comet has been detected using transit photometry, a technique by which astronomers observe a star’s light for telltale dips in intensity. Such dips signal potential transits, or crossings of planets or other objects in front of a star, ...

SpaceTime

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