SGR 0525−66
Discovery
On March 5, 1979, two Soviet spacecraft that were then drifting through the Solar System were hit by a blast of gamma radiation at 15:51 UTC. This contact raised the radiation readings on both the probes from a normal 100 counts per second to over 200,000 counts a second, in only a fraction of a millisecond.
This burst of gamma rays quickly continued to spread. Eleven seconds later, Helios 2, a NASA probe, which was in orbit around the Sun, was saturated by the blast of radiation. It soon hit Venus, and the Pioneer Venus Orbiter's detectors were overcome by the wave. Seconds later, Earth received the wave of radiation, where the powerful output of gamma rays inundated the detectors of three U.S. Department of Defense Vela satellites, the Soviet Prognoz 7 satellite, and the Einstein Observatory. Just before the wave exited the Solar System, the blast also hit the International Sun–Earth Explorer. This extremely powerful blast of gamma radiation constituted the strongest wave of extra-solar gamma rays ever detected; it was over 100 times more intense than any known previous extra-solar burst. Because gamma rays travel at the speed of light and the time of the pulse was recorded by several distant spacecraft as well as on Earth, the source of the gamma radiation could be calculated to an accuracy of about 2 arcseconds. The direction of the source corresponded with the remnants of a star that had gone supernova around 3000 B.C.E. The source was named SGR 0526-66, the event itself was named GRB 790305b, the first observed SGR megaflare.
See also
References
- ^ "PSR B0525-66". SIMBAD. Centre de données astronomiques de Strasbourg. Retrieved 1 March 2018.
- ^ On the persistent X-ray emission from the soft gamma-ray repeaters
- ^ Kouveliotou, C.; Duncan, R. C.; Thompson, C. (February 2003). "Magnetars Archived 2007-06-11 at the Wayback Machine". Scientific American; Page 35.
- ^ Cline, T. L., Desai, U. D., Teegarden, B. J., Evans, W. D., Klebesadel, R. W., Laros, J. G. (Apr 1982). "Precise source location of the anomalous 1979 March 5 gamma-ray transient". The Astrophysical Journal. 255: L45–L48. Bibcode:1982ApJ...255L..45C. doi:10.1086/183766. hdl:2060/19820012236.
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: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ Kouveliotou, C.; Duncan, R. C.; Thompson, C. (February 2003). "Magnetars Archived 2007-06-11 at the Wayback Machine". Scientific American; Page 36.
External links
- Kulkarni, Shrinivas (1998). "The Enigmatic Soft Gamma-Ray Repeaters". Barbara A. Mikolski Archive for Space Telescopes. HST Proposal. Space Telescope Science Institute. Archived from the original on 2011-06-10. Retrieved 2008-03-18.
- Mereghetti, S.; Götz, D.; Mirabel, I. F.; Hurley, K. (April 11, 2005). "INTEGRAL discovery of persistent hard X-ray emission from the Soft Gamma-ray Repeater SGR 1806-20". Astronomy and Astrophysics. Letters. 433 (2): L9–L12. arXiv:astro-ph/0411695. Bibcode:2005A&A...433L...9M. doi:10.1051/0004-6361:200500088. S2CID 15668673.