In a galaxy far, far away, as the movies had it, extraordinary events are occurring.
We’re happy to see that scientists in Louisiana are among those leading studies worldwide on developments in astrophysics and astronomy. LSU played a key role by creating the Nobel-honored LIGO facility in Livingston Parish, one of two U.S. observatories dedicated to detecting and analyzing gravitational waves predicted by Albert Einstein’s studies of the universe.
The latest distinction is the leading role of LSU assistant professor Eric Burns of the Department of Physics and Astronomy. He and colleagues around the world have studied the Gamma-ray burst 221009A, which sent a pulse of radiation through the solar system that was picked up by observatories on Oct. 9.
”GRB 221009A was likely the brightest burst at X-ray and gamma-ray energies to occur since human civilization began,’’ Burns said. Earning the title of BOAT, or “brightest of all time,” the event prompted Burns and colleagues to mobilize the James Webb Space Telescope and other telescopes’ instruments to better observe the gamma-ray burst.
”I believed this was a gamma-ray burst before a lot of my colleagues did, and so on this I actually spent the effort to get other telescopes to point,” he said. ”We got to use the James Webb Space Telescope in this way for the first time and really just engage with a bunch of teams; there was direct work from a few hundred scientists.”
Big questions surrounding this celestial event will be the work of scientists for a long time. It’s good to see LSU in the mix as humanity ponders the mysteries of a great universe.
Leave a Reply