Scientists are studying a strange explosion, detected with the Swift satellite, that appeared on February 18, 2006, about 440 million light years away in the constellation Aries.

The blast (GRB 060218) looks like a gamma-ray burst, however it may be the start of a supernova explosion.
The explosion was about 25 times closer and lasted 100 times longer than a typical gamma-ray burst.

Amateur astronomers in the Northern Hemisphere might be able to see it next week.


Expand 9 degree width map of Aries.
Position(2000): RA = 03:21:39.71 Dec = +16:52:02.6

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

BTW, GRB 060218 is also known as Supernova 2006aj a type Ib/c explosion that was discovered near the centre of an anonymous galaxy in Aries.
It was at magnitude 18.2 at discovery.

http://mizar.as.arizona.edu/~grb/pub..._irg_clean.jpg

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

Thanks Blob, this is another interesting item from Swift.

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Forming opinions as we speak

This is from this site
http://grb.sonoma.edu/

This is what is said about the 06 02 18 Burst

Interestingly, Swift detected gamma rays from this same location over a month earlier, on January 17. Spectra taken of this event also show features similar to those seen in a supernova, when a massive star explodes. It seems likely that we are seeing a supernova-GRB connection, a rare event and one that is highly anticipated.


Then it says this about the 06 01 17 burst

There is also a bright galaxy very close to the position of the burst, and the redshift of this galaxy is z=0.042, indicating a distance of 562 million light years. That is actually very close for a GRB, which is consistent with the GRB brightness. However, estimates of the redshift of the GRB using other methods have yielded inconsistent results, with values ranging from z=0.45 (4.6 billion light years) to z=1.3 (8.8 billion light years). Hopefully follow-up observations will clear up this issue.

It is my contention that you have to be very careful when you are looking at all this. They say close to a galaxy, coincident with, apparently within etc, and then when you see the kind of redshift questionabilty here, you have to wonder how they can be making a galaxy or SuperNova conection at all.

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

Space.com news article.

See also this article by Sky & Telescope.

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Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself. The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.
-- Richard Feynman

Astronomers believe the bursts of radiation are emitted from a star about to implode; this may be a rare glimpse of a black-hole birth.

So far, the explosion looks like a "Type 1C" supernova. This means that the star has consumed all its nuclear fuel, leaving behind only an iron core.
In the 30-minute blast, the recorded Gamma rays did not show the usual pattern of short, sharp peaks; instead it rose smoothly.
That may indicate that the axis of the supernova is pointed away from Earth.

BTW, You'll need a least a 16” telescope to see it, though it may brighten considerably over the next week.

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

Thanks for the pointers to the two articles. The S&T one gave some good details. I'm wondering of the January GRB was the same object, or a conincidence.

It is curious that this is so different from the usual GRBs we see, both in reduced luminosity and increased duration. It could be that this was slightly off-line, and that we were seeing the Gammas emitted as the beam plowed through clouds over an extended time, instead of all at once when the alignment is near perfect.

Alternatively, these 1c supernovae might NOT be the source for most GRBs.

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I have interests in this subject as some may
remember. I have long wondered what detectors
were in space at the time of 1987a and if
checks were made for the time the neutrinos
passed.

Hum,
New Scientist has a few comments and insights into the explosion
Link


@peteshimmon
Apart from hubble etc looking at it in Optical wavelengths (etc) there were only ground based Neutrino detectors for the explosion (newly deployed)
Link

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

I can't let this one go by: I write those synopses. :-) The site automatically gets the position and other basic info on a burst from Swift, but as astronomers observe it and send out emails, I read them and then write up the entries.

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Phil Plait
The Bad Astronomer
http://www.badastronomy.com
badastro@badastronomy.com

Phil;

VERY COOL! I didn't realize that someone else was writting those (and obviously did not know it was you), and that you are just reporting what scientists have already written, and to be honest, the tone and caution in my post above also comes from reading "Many" abstacts that 'suggest' that any particular GRB is associated with a galaxy by saying it is 'coincident with', or appears to be part of, or the putative galaxy of GRB so and so, etc, etc. I have many more reasons if you wish to discuss them.

So what do you think about my concern with how some scientists are wording their reports or abstacts to suggest or otherwise assume that GRB's are associated with galaxies.

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

I'm wondering about the "unnamed galaxy". Haven't they all, down to some dimness, been surveyed?

And wouldn't they give it a name as soon as it because interesting? How do you refer to it to other astronomers other than "the one over there" or "the host galaxy of (named event)"?

--John

Atlas of the Universe

http://anzwers.org/free/universe/index.html

Shows that there are 350 billion Galaxies and 3.5 trillion Dwarf Galaxies, so when they are looking at "TRYING" to associate any GRB with a host galaxy, especially at high redshift, they do not have a name.

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

SUMMARY: NASA's Swift satellite is continuing to send back surprising information about gamma ray bursts. On February 18, 2006, it discovered something completely unique; a burst that originated 440 million light-years away and lasted about 30 minutes. This event is very similar to the more common bursts that have been seen in the past; however, it was about 25 times closer, and lasted 100 times longer than a typical burst.


View full article
What do you think about this story? post your comments below.

May we reasonably deduce that this type of low intensity GBR is so rarely observed precisely because of its low intensity, in other words that if it had been much further away, it would quite simply have gone unobserved? This would in turn suggest that this type of event may therefore be quite commonplace, especially in cases where intensity levels are even lower than that observed here.

As regards the idea that intensity and duration may in some way be linked to a GRB being "slightly off-line", do you mean that we only see the much more common, very short-duration, extremely intense GRBs because the Earth happens to be in the path of some kind of colimated jet emanating from the emitting object?

Sorry, I realize I am enlarging the discussion beyond the initial concern with GRB 060218, perhaps there is another thread for discussing GRBs in general which you could redirect me to. Thanks!

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What Fraser presented here was the very Americano-centric PSU news release.

Here's the news release from the Swift site itself:

http://swift.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/swif...006/06-18.html

It makes mention of the fact that the supernova features in the spectrum were first detected by European astronomers in the GRACE collaboration with the VLT in Chile.

Way to go, Nicola!

See you in Nature.

Don Alexander
TLS Tautenburg, Germany

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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>

That the burst lasted so long will be a huge source of theoretical debate. Who could explain such a gamma ray phenomena? Very unique catch.

I have merged the UT story into this thread, igven they are the same story and this thread was first.

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Humanity must rise above the Earth, to the top of the atmosphere and beyond, for only then will we fully understand the world in which we live.~Socrates, 500 B.C. ~

Let every man judge according to his own standards, by what he has himself read, not by what others tell him. ~Albert Einstein~

Don, when you click to the other links you get to this;

http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/1...0218_clean.tif

The image in the middle is GRB06021618. So, it would appear there is another, even brighter and bigger one above it? Same configuration. And another above that without the middle bright spot. Also, do you know if the bright spot just right of GRB060218, is supposed to be the host galaxy, and has anything been said about the blue spot that that appears on the pic on the right that is left of the GRB?

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

When another GRB was seen in a galaxy in Leo
a few years ago, the afterglow morphed into
a Supernove. With my own ideas in mind I
figured some stars of the galaxy exactly in
front of the supernova might have "spalled"
high energy radiaion towards us caused by the
passage of the neutrinos through the star. That
there were several peaks suggested a number of
stars, some just off the supernova sightline.
Yhis gave a duration of a few seconds if I
remember. But 30 minutes? Well perhaps the
supernova is behind a globular cluster of
old stars. Thats my input for what it is worth.