Yet another reason to have several space telescopes in orbit around the sun away from earth.

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"What you think you thought you saw you did not see." Agent J, MiB - Manhatten Bureau

Those are very interesting details, thanks.
As you are at the coal face so to speak I
will not try to teach you your job but they do
not rule out the idea as far as I can see. I
hope "wacky" indicates a slight, growing
appreaciation of the explanation. I read that
all six types of neutrino are in the burst
and perhaps white dwarfs act as catalysts to
recreate in a small way some of the things that
happened when they were created! I would say
a shock front is caused in the star that
causes material to spall from the exit side
temporally and give out X-rays as it falls
back on the surface. This could explain some
high energy bursts. But this is only one
mechanism I suspect. There are surely others!

However, it may also be that GRBs originate from something that astronomers haven't considered yet.

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RussT
________________________________
Everything is, as it should be, otherwise, it wouldn't be!

Have some observation of the object,see:
http://sabbe.fragzone.se/KPO/grb060218.htm

Regards
h-g

One of the comparing stars for GRB060218 (mag.16.29) seems to be a variable star, if any have images of the area i will be happy to look at it.See:
http://sabbe.fragzone.se/KPO/grb060218c.htm

h-g

B) A supernova neutrino burst is probably emitted isotropically, so the neutrino flux is spread over the whole surface of an expanding sphere - this means the flux drops quickly with distance (r^-2 law). Globular clusters are large, dozens of light years in size. If the SN is close, only a few white dwarfs would lie along the line of sight. If the SN is distant, the flux is low.

Don. I disagree on the isotropy of the prompt neutrino burst.
1.Core collapse type 2 supernovae leave barrel shaped remnants, not spherical, as you would expect if the explosion was spherically symmetric (M.J. Kesteven, R.N. Manchester, Molonglo, NSW, Australian Journal of Physics)..48 0f 60 remnants definitively barrels..4 possible)..circa 1985.
2. Most supernova remnants whether type 2's or type 1a's are devoid of pulsars (Manchester also)..less than 5 in ~ 400.
3. High transverse velocity pulsars are seen, not associated with any nearby remnant(Lyne, Harrison, Cordes), though to be fair, they oft outlive the fairly short-lived remnants, suggesting ejection. (original asymmetrical ejections suggested by Schlovskii...circa 1976)
4.Pulsar ejection is a fundamental effect due to parity effects which are present in all weak interactions....supernovae no exception. The largest neutrino fluxes, and the strongest magnetic fields that naturally occur.
5. The nascent pulsar "birth" is almost certain to be accompanied by an asymmetry in the prompt neutrino burst, the and as a consequence of the massive pulsar acceleration....a gravitational wave.
6. Use of type1a's as standard candles fallaciously ignores luminosity vs viewing angle of the barrel shaped ejecta (I spoke to people in a position to use the info many years ago) ~14yrs.
7. Here's a prediction. If the long GRB's are truly from "beamed" supernovae...in all likihood the beam points in the birthward direction of the pulsar, as the shock front ruptures. Early neutrino beaming from that area losing neutrino opacity in the core shock bounce should precede a long GRB by only a few seconds statistically. Somebody ought to see if SuperKamiokande, SNO, MontBlanc, Dumand, Borexino, are set to observe statistical twitching precedent to Long GRB's.by 1-10 seconds..No? Pete.

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A third rate theory forbids
A second rate theory explains after the fact
A first rate theory predicts...A. Lomonosov

Looks like this odd object did not get up to calculated mag of ~16.5 and also fading to soon, tonight down to mag~17.9
http://sabbe.fragzone.se/KPO/grb060218.htm
h-g

Hi, if anyone is still hanging around this forum:

The Swift Team has submitted its paper to Nature and placed it on astro-ph:

http://arxiv.org/pdf/astro-ph/0603279

I can wholeheartedly recommend anyone who is interested in this event to read this paper. It is not too technical in nature (slight pun intended) and both the presented data and the conclusions are superb.

Let's hope our own Nature paper turns out this well...

Also, today another paper:

http://arxiv.org/pdf/astro-ph/0603377

__________________
David Alexander Kann
PhD student, Gamma-Ray burst Afterglow Collaboration at ESO
Thueringer Landessternwarte Tautenburg

<span style='color:blue'>Ignite our minds and let's burn brighter
These are the wonders at your feet</span>
<span style='font-size:8pt;line-height:100%'>- Dark Tranquillity, The Wonders At Your Feet</span>

Is superb another word for true?

Title: An optical supernova associated with the X-ray flash XRF 060218
Authors: E. Pian, P.A. Mazzali, N. Masetti, P. Ferrero, S. Klose, E. Palazzi, E. Ramirez-Ruiz, S.E. Woosley, C. Kouveliotou, J. Deng, A.V. Filippenko, R. Foley, J. Fynbo, D.A. Kann, W. Li, J. Hjorth, K. Nomoto, F. Patat, D. Sauer, J. Sollerman, P.M. Vreeswijk, E.W. Guenther, A. Levan, P. O'Brien, N. Tanvir, R.A.M.J. Wijers, C. Dumas, O. Hainaut, D.S. Wong, D. Baade, L. Wang, L. Amati, E. Cappellaro, A.J. Castro-Tirado, S. Ellison, F. Frontera, A.S. Fruchter, J. Greiner, K. Kawabata, C. Ledoux, K. Maeda, P. Moller, L. Nicastro, E. Rol, R. Starling
Comments: Final published version

Long-duration gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are associated with type Ic supernovae that are more luminous than average and that eject material at very high velocities. Less-luminous supernovae were not hitherto known to be associated with GRBs, and therefore GRB-supernovae were thought to be rare events. Whether X-ray flashes - analogues of GRBs, but with lower luminosities and fewer gamma-rays - can also be associated with supernovae, and whether they are intrinsically 'weak' events or typical GRBs viewed off the axis of the burst, is unclear. Here we report the optical discovery and follow-up observations of the type Ic supernova SN 2006aj associated with X-ray flash XRF 060218. Supernova 2006aj is intrinsically less luminous than the GRB-supernovae, but more luminous than many supernovae not accompanied by a GRB. The ejecta velocities derived from our spectra are intermediate between these two groups, which is consistent with the weakness of both the GRB output and the supernova radio flux. Our data, combined with radio and X-ray observations, suggest that XRF 060218 is an intrinsically weak and soft event, rather than a classical GRB observed off-axis. This extends the GRB-supernova connection to X-ray flashes and fainter supernovae, implying a common origin. Events such as XRF 060218 are probably more numerous than GRB-supernovae.

Read more (72kb, PDF)

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`Irony` actually does mean `metal like`...

So how many past grbs are now redesignated xrfs?