An artist’s illustration gas clouds emitting from a black hole area. The gas clouds each have strong magnetic fields which emit gamma rays. The bundles of red lines inside the gas clouds represent the images left by magnetic rays.
One of the Biggest Explosions in the Universe Bursts Out of Gas Cloud Emitted from Area Around Black Hole
Yomiuri Shimbun: 宇宙最大の爆発、ブラックホール周辺のガス塊で
September 19, 2011
A gamma-ray burst, called the biggest kind of explosion in the universe, burst out of gas cloud emitted from the area around a black hole, Kanazawa University astrophysicist Daisuke Yonetoku’s research group learned.
Results of the group’s research into the actual nature of this puzzling phenomenon will be announced at the Japanese Astronomical Society meeting convening on the 19th in Kagoshima.
Gamma-ray bursts occur when gamma rays radiate in large quantities for just a short period of time, just tens of seconds. They are thought to be the key to clarifying the physical appearance of the ancient universe. Some think they are responsible for a mass extinction of life forms 435 million years ago. It is thought that they occur when stars more than 30 times heavier than the sun explode and create black holes, but the specific structure of this process is not yet understood.
The research team used the equipment on IKAROS, the Japanese solar sail spacecraft which uses just a little pressure from solar rays to accelerate, to observe the gamma-ray burst on August 26, 2010 and analyze the data.
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