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Tormenta de Meteoros, Estallido Gamma de Alta Energía, Terremoto

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Meteor Storm, Highest Energy Gamma Burst, Earthquake | S0 News Nov.21.2019

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📰 Cómo dos intrusos del espacio interestelar está actualizando la Astronomía

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📰 Cómo dos intrusos del espacio interestelar está actualizando la Astronomía

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From the tallest peak in Hawaii to a high plateau in the Andes, some of the biggest telescopes on Earth will point towards a faint smudge of light over the next few weeks. The same patch of sky will draw the attention of Gennady Borisov, an amateur astronomer in Crimea, and many other hobbyists who will sacrifice proper sleep and doze through their day jobs rather than miss this golden opportunity.

What they're looking for is a rare visitor that is about to make its closest approach to the Sun. After that, they have just months to grab as much information as they can from the object before it disappears forever into the blackness of space.

This chunk of rock and ice started its journey many light years from Earth, millions of years ago. The object got kicked out of its own neighbourhood by a violent gravitational push - maybe from a nearby planet, maybe from a passing star. Since then, it has been adrift in the space between the stars, eventually heading in our direction.

On 30 August, Borisov spotted the object in the predawn sky - it was glowing dimly, with a broad stubby tail. Later named Comet 2I/Borisov after its discoverer, it captured global attention because it's only the second object - aside from exotic dust particles - ever known to have entered our Solar System from interstellar space. "This is my eighth comet, and so amazing," says Borisov, who adds that it was "great luck that I got such a unique object".

It is remarkably different from the first interstellar interloper, which was a small, dark, rocky-looking object named 1I/'Oumuamua that whizzed past the Sun in 2017. Together, these two interstellar objects are rewriting what researchers know about the icy bodies - estimated to number as many as 10 ²⁶ - that float unmoored throughout the Milky Way.

Among other things, 1I/'Oumuamua and 2I/Borisov have provided the first direct glimpse of the physics and chemistry of the squashed debris clouds that surround young stars and serve as the birthing grounds for planets. These samples from other planetary systems are allowing scientists to explore whether the Solar System is unique or whether it shares building blocks with other planetary systems in the Milky Way.

Because astronomers spotted 2I/Borisov on its way into the Solar System, they have many months to study it (see 'Dropping by') - unlike their fleeting glimpse of 'Oumuamua, which was discovered on its way out. As a result, they expect to learn much more from 2I/Borisov, such as what chemical compounds make up its icy heart. It is their best look yet at an object known to have formed around another star.

And as telescopes continue to probe the sky for faint, fast-moving objects, researchers expect that they will spot many more interstellar interlopers in coming years. "It's been so much fun to see this suddenly crack open and watch a new field develop," says Michele Bannister, a planetary astronomer at Queen's University Belfast, UK.

Dusty origins

Interstellar objects probably began their lives when icy grains clumped together in a disk of gas and dust around a young star. These are the same regions where planets grow from small nuclei and then ping-pong into different orbits around the star because of collisions and gravitational shoves.

The planets push through the icy rubble like a snowplough shouldering its way through a pile of hailstones. And modelling results suggest that the planets fling more than 90% of those 'hailstones' out of their star's sphere of influence and into interstellar space. There they drift, as lonely scattered objects, until they happen to pass close enough to another star to be attracted by its gravity for a quick visit.

Astronomers had expected that the first interstellar object they saw would look like a typical comet. Most comets in the Solar System hail from the distant realm known as the Oort cloud, a sort of cosmic deep freeze that lies roughly 1,000 times farther away from the Sun than Pluto. Occasionally, something perturbs one of these comets and sends it careering towards the Sun; as it gets closer and warms up, its nucleus sprays out dust and gas that form a classic cometary tail.

But when the first interstellar visitor showed up, it didn't look like a conventional comet. Unlike them, 'Oumuamua was tiny - just 200 metres or so across - and rocky. Also, it was shaped like a cigar and tumbling end over end. That's about all scientists could work out before 'Oumuamua headed out of the Solar System.

By contrast, 2I/Borisov looks like an ordinary comet - and researchers are taking advantage of their time to study it. "We are keenly interested in seeing what the chemistry of this comet is, to see if it is different from those in the Solar System," says Karen Meech, an astrobiologist at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu.

2I/Borisov is reddish in colour and is steadily spraying out dust particles,. Its nucleus is relatively small, perhaps just one kilometre across, but that's not unheard of for Solar System comets.

"After 'Oumuamua, we had to completely revise what we thought interstellar objects might be like," says Matthew Knight, a comet specialist at the University of Maryland in College Park. "But now the second one coming through looks more or less, so far, like what we thought we might see from a comet ejected from another star. Now I feel a lot better." That suggests that the star systems where other worlds form might be much like our own.

The discoveries are coming fast. Just three weeks after 2I/Borisov was first seen, astronomers trained the 4.2-metre William Herschel Telescope in Spain's Canary Islands on it and spotted molecules of cyanide gas streaming off the comet. It was the first-ever detection of gas from an alien visitor to the Solar System.

On 11 October, another research team used a 3.5-metre telescope in New Mexico to detect oxygen coming off the comet. The oxygen probably came from water breaking apart in the comet's nucleus, making this the first time that researchers have spotted water from another star system entering our own. Together, the amounts of cyanide and water spraying from the comet aren't surprising compared with what astronomers have seen from many other bodies.

Astronomers are watching keenly to see what other molecules, such as carbon monoxide, they can spot coming off 2I/Borisov as it gets closer to the Sun and warms up, which will further reveal how similar - or how different - it is to comets in the Solar System, says Maria Womack, an astronomer at the Florida Space Institute at the University of Central Florida in Orlando.

Early observations also suggest that 2I/Borisov might contain relatively low amounts of carbon-chain molecules such as C ₂ and C ₃. About 30% of the comets in the Solar System are similarly carbon-depleted. They typically come from relatively close to the Sun, rather than from the far reaches of the Oort cloud.

As months pass and astronomers gather more observations of 2I/Borisov, they hope to be able to understand much more about the planet-forming disk where it originated. "It's going to be really exciting to figure out what the building blocks of other systems are going to look like relative to ours," says Malena Rice, a graduate student in astronomy at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.

Researchers also hope to start unravelling how interstellar objects might have voyaged through deep space before showing up in the Solar System. Estimates suggest the objects experience many forces as they orbit the centre of the Galaxy, including occasional encounters with other stars or nudges from Galactic tides. Some scientists have tried to calculate which stars 1I/'Oumuamua and 2I/Borisov could have formed around, but tracing their orbits back is difficult - like trying to reconstruct which bar a London pub-crawler started at from the final one they visited.

Other questions include when we can expect the next interstellar visitor, and how different it might be from 1I/'Oumuamua and 2I/Borisov. Scientists didn't expect two in such rapid succession after decades of fruitless searching. "I remain confused and astounded that the second object came along so fast," says Robert Jedicke, an asteroid specialist at the University of Hawaii, who has worked to calculate the frequency of interstellar visitors. "They're like buses," says Alan Fitzsimmons, an astronomer at Queen's University Belfast. "You wait decades for one to come along, and then two come along almost at once."

Some astronomers are now poring through archival data to see whether objects spotted years ago were actually interstellar visitors that researchers did not recognize at the time. And the future rate of discovery is expected to rise - perhaps to one interstellar object a year - when the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope goes online in Chile in 2022, from where it will survey the entire visible sky every three nights. The European Space Agency has been working on a spacecraft concept, known as Comet Interceptor, that could visit future interstellar objects as they wing their way past the Sun.

Once astronomers have 10 or 20 interstellar objects under their belts, they should have a much better picture of what these deep-space wanderers are really like. "Eventually we'll be talking about the Galaxy as something in which we are exchanging the products of planetary systems," says Bannister. "It will be an entirely different way of doing astronomy."

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How two intruders from interstellar space are upending astronomy

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From the tallest peak in Hawaii to a high plateau in the Andes, some of the biggest telescopes on Earth will point towards a faint smudge of light over the next few weeks.

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📰 Telescopio interior captura el centro de la Vía Láctea, descubriendo remanentes de estrellas muertas

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📰 Telescopio interior captura el centro de la Vía Láctea, descubriendo remanentes de estrellas muertas

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A radio telescope in the Western Australian outback has captured a spectacular new view of the centre of the galaxy in which we live, the Milky Way.

The image from the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) telescope shows what our galaxy would look like if human eyes could see radio waves.
Astrophysicist Dr Natasha Hurley-Walker, from the Curtin University node of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR), created the images using the Pawsey Supercomputing Centre in Perth.
"This new view captures low-frequency radio emission from our galaxy, looking both in fine detail and at larger structures," she said.

"Our images are looking directly at the middle of the Milky Way, towards a region astronomers call the Galactic Centre."

The data for the research comes from the GaLactic and Extragalactic All-sky MWA survey, or 'GLEAM' for short.

The survey has a resolution of two arcminutes (about the same as the human eye) and maps the sky using radio waves at frequencies between 72 and 231 MHz (FM radio is near 100 MHz).

"It's the power of this wide frequency range that makes it possible for us to disentangle different overlapping objects as we look toward the complexity of the Galactic Centre," Dr Hurley-Walker said.

"Essentially, different objects have different 'radio colours', so we can use them to work out what kind of physics is at play."

Using the images, Dr Hurley-Walker and her colleagues discovered the remnants of 27 massive stars that exploded in supernovae at the end of their lives.
These stars would have been eight or more times more massive than our Sun before their dramatic destruction thousands of years ago.
Younger and closer supernova remnants, or those in very dense environments, are easy to spot, and 295 are already known.

Unlike other instruments, the MWA can find those which are older, further away, or in very empty environments.

Dr Hurley-Walker said one of the newly-discovered supernova remnants lies in such an empty region of space, far out of the plane of our galaxy, and so despite being quite young, is also very faint.

"It's the remains of a star that died less than 9,000 years ago, meaning the explosion could have been visible to Indigenous people across Australia at that time," she said.

An expert in cultural astronomy, Associate Professor Duane Hamacher from the University of Melbourne, said some Aboriginal traditions do describe bright new stars appearing in the sky, but we don't know of any definitive traditions that describe this particular event.
"However, now that we know when and where this supernova appeared in the sky, we can collaborate with Indigenous elders to see if any of their traditions describe this cosmic event. If any exist, it would be extremely exciting," he said.

Dr Hurley-Walker said two of the supernova remnants discovered are quite unusual "orphans", found in a region of sky where there are no massive stars, which means future searches across other such regions might be more successful than astronomers expected.

Other supernova remnants discovered in the research are very old, she said.

"This is really exciting for us, because it's hard to find supernova remnants in this phase of life-they allow us to look further back in time in the Milky Way."

The MWA telescope is a precursor to the world's largest radio telescope, the Square Kilometre Array, which is due to be built in Australia and South Africa from 2021.

"The MWA is perfect for finding these objects, but it is limited in its sensitivity and resolution," Dr Hurley-Walker said.

"The low-frequency part of the SKA, which will be built at the same site as the MWA, will be thousands of times more sensitive and have much better resolution, so should find the thousands of supernova remnants that formed in the last 100,000 years, even on the other side of the Milky Way."

The new images of the Galactic Centre can be viewed via a web browser using the GLEAMoscope app or through an android device using the GLEAM app.

Publication:

'New candidate radio supernova remnants detected in the GLEAM survey over 345° < l < 60°, 180° < l < 240°', published in Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia (PASA) on November 20 th, 2019.

'Candidate radio supernova remnants observed by the GLEAM survey over 345° < l < 60°, 180° < l < 240°', published in Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia (PASA) on November 20 th, 2019.

'GaLactic and Extragalactic All-sky Murchison Widefield Array (GLEAM) survey II: Galactic Plane 345° < l < 67°, 180° < l < 240°', published in Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia (PASA) on November 20 th, 2019.

More Information:

ICRAR

The International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) is a joint venture between Curtin University and The University of Western Australia with support and funding from the State Government of Western Australia.

The Murchison Widefield Array

The Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) is a low-frequency radio telescope and is the first of four Square Kilometre Array (SKA) precursors to be completed.

A consortium of partner institutions from seven countries (Australia, USA, India, New Zealand, Canada, Japan, and China) financed the development, construction, commissioning, and operations of the facility. The MWA consortium is led by Curtin University.

Contacts:
Dr Natasha Hurley-Walker - ICRAR / Curtin University
Ph: +61 8 9266 9178 E: Natasha.Hurley-Walker@curtin.edu.au
Pete Wheeler - Media Contact, ICRAR
Ph: +61 423 982 018 E: Pete.Wheeler@icrar.org
Lucien Wilkinson - Media Contact, Curtin University
Ph: +61 401 103 683 E: Lucien.Wilkinson@curtin.edu.au

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Outback telescope captures Milky Way centre, discovers remnants of dead stars - ICRAR

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A radio telescope in the Western Australian outback has captured a spectacular new view of the centre of the galaxy in which we live, the Milky Way. The image from the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) telescope shows what our galaxy would look like if human eyes could see radio waves.

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📰 Telescopios MAGIC captan la más épica explosión

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📰 Telescopios MAGIC captan la más épica explosión

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A violent explosion in a distant galaxy has broken the record for the brightest source of high-energy light in the Universe.

The light was emitted by a gamma ray burst, a brief but powerful cosmic explosion in a galaxy seven billion light-years away.

The research involved more than 300 scientists from around the world, and was published today in the journal Nature.

Astronomer and co-author Dr Gemma Anderson, from the Curtin University node of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research, said gamma ray bursts are among the most powerful explosions in the Universe.

"They are likely produced by a massive star being blown apart in a supernova, with the resulting explosion leaving behind a black hole," she said.

"A typical burst releases as much energy in a few seconds as the Sun will in its entire 10-billion-year lifetime."

Dr Anderson said gamma ray bursts appear in the sky without warning, about once per day.

"The bursts themselves usually only last a few seconds," she said.

"But they have an afterglow that can be observed by telescopes like MAGIC for several minutes, and by radio telescopes for months or even years."

On January 14, 2019, a gamma ray burst was detected by two space satellites-the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory and the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope.

It was named GRB 190114C and, within 22 seconds, its coordinates were sent to astronomers around the world.
Among them were the operators of the twin Major Atmospheric Gamma Imaging Cherenkov (MAGIC) telescopes in the Canary Islands.
MAGIC collaboration spokesperson Dr Razmik Mirzoyan said the two 64-ton telescopes were pointed towards the gamma ray burst within 27 seconds.

"The telescopes were able to observe the burst within 50 seconds of it appearing in the sky," he said.

In the first seconds after they started observing, the MAGIC telescopes detected particles of light-or photons-from the afterglow that clocked in at between 0.2 and 1 teraelectron volts (TeV).

That's equivalent to the amount of energy released by proton collisions in the Large Hadron Collider, the most powerful particle accelerator on Earth.

Dr Anderson said it is the first time such high-energy radiation has been detected from a gamma ray burst.

"It's a trillion times more energetic than visible light," she said.

"It makes GRB 190114C the brightest known source of TeV photons in the Universe."

The gamma ray burst was followed up by telescopes around the world, to pinpoint where the burst had originated from and its physical attributes.

That included observations of radio waves by Dr Anderson and collaborators in Australia and around the world, using the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA).

Dr Anderson said the high-energy light was likely caused by the blast wave of material from the gamma ray burst hitting the surrounding environment.

"The photons probably weren't generated in the explosion itself," she said.

MAGIC (Major Atmospheric Gamma Imaging Cherenkov) is an international collaboration involving 165 researchers (physicists and engineers) from 24 research institutions in 11 countries.

Publication:

'Inverse Compton emission revealed by multi-wavelength observations of a gamma-ray burst', published in Nature on November 21st, 2019.

Contacts:
Dr Gemma Anderson - ICRAR / Curtin University
Ph: +61 8 9266 3785 E: Gemma.Anderson@icrar.org
Pete Wheeler - Media Contact, ICRAR
Ph: +61 423 982 018 E: Pete.Wheeler@icrar.org
Lucien Wilkinson - Media Contact, Curtin University
Ph: +61 401 103 683 E: Lucien.Wilkinson@curtin.edu.au

Additional Multimedia:

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MAGIC telescopes see most epic explosion - ICRAR

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A violent explosion in a distant galaxy has broken the record for the brightest source of high-energy light in the Universe. The light was emitted by a gamma ray burst, a brief but powerful cosmic explosion in a galaxy seven billion light-years away.

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📰 Explorador acuático piloteado bajo el hielo

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📰 Explorador acuático piloteado bajo el hielo

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A little robotic explorer will be rolling into Antarctica this month to perform a gymnastic feat - driving upside down under sea ice.

BRUIE, or the Buoyant Rover for Under-Ice Exploration, is being developed for underwater exploration in extraterrestrial, icy waters by engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. It will spend the next month testing its endurance at Australia's Casey research station in Antarctica, in preparation for a mission that could one day search for life in ocean worlds beyond Earth.

There are moons throughout the solar system believed to be covered in deep oceans hidden beneath thick, frozen surfaces. Scientists like Kevin Hand, JPL lead scientist on the BRUIE project, believe that these lunar oceans, such as those on Jupiter's moon Europa and Saturn's moon Enceladus, may be the best places to look for life in our solar system. But first, they'll need a tough aquatic explorer capable of navigating solo through an alien ocean locked under ice sheets that could be 6 to 12 miles (10 to 19 kilometers) thick.

"The ice shells covering these distant oceans serve as a window into the oceans below, and the chemistry of the ice could help feed life within those oceans. Here on Earth, the ice covering our polar oceans serves a similar role, and our team is particularly interested in what is happening where the water meets the ice," said Hand.

The Antarctic waters are the closest Earth analog to the seas of an icy moon, which makes them an ideal testing ground for BRUIE technology. Three feet (1 meter) long and equipped with two wheels to roll along beneath the ice, the buoyant rover can take images and collect data on the important region where water and ice meet, what scientists call the "ice-water interface."

"We've found that life often lives at interfaces, both the sea bottom and the ice-water interface at the top. Most submersibles have a challenging time investigating this area, as ocean currents might cause them to crash, or they would waste too much power maintaining position," said lead engineer Andy Klesh. "BRUIE, however, uses buoyancy to remain anchored against the ice and is impervious to most currents. In addition, it can safely power down, turning on only when it needs to take a measurement, so that it can spend months observing the under-ice environment."

During several Antarctic field tests, the rover will remain tethered to the surface as Hand, Klesh, mechanical engineer Dan Berisford and University of Western Australia engineer Dan Arthur test its suite of instruments, including its two live, high-definition cameras.

"BRUIE will carry several science instruments to measure parameters related to life, such as dissolved oxygen, water salinity, pressure and temperature," said Berisford, who will attach the science instruments if early tests go well. But life on other worlds like Enceladus and Europa may be difficult to measure. "Once we get there," he added, "we only really know how to detect life similar to that on Earth. So it's possible that very different microbes might be difficult to recognize."

While the team has previously tested BRUIE in Alaska and the Arctic, this is the rover's first trial in Antarctica. Supported by the Australian Antarctic Program, the crew will travel to lakes and the seashore near Casey station, where they will drill holes in the ice in order to submerge BRUIE. The rover could even make some friends - curious penguins and seals sometimes investigate when the science teams drill through the ice.

The team will continue to work on BRUIE until it can survive under the ice for months at a time, remotely navigate without a tether and explore the ocean at greater depths. NASA is already at work constructing the Europa Clipper orbiter, which is scheduled to launch in 2025 to study Jupiter's moon Europa, laying the groundwork for a future mission that could search for life beneath the ice.
News Media Contact
Arielle Samuelson
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-0307
arielle.a.samuelson@jpl.nasa.gov

2019-231

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Aquatic Rover Goes for a Drive Under the Ice

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A little robotic explorer will be rolling into Antarctica this month to perform a gymnastic feat - driving upside down under sea ice. BRUIE, or the Buoyant Rover for Under-Ice Exploration, is being developed for underwater exploration in extraterrestrial, icy waters by engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

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📰 El Hubble estudia las más intensas explosiones de Rayos Gamma 

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📰 El Hubble estudia las más intensas explosiones de Rayos Gamma 

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Release ID: 2019-56

The Star Wars film trilogies are known best for the iconic "Death Star," an alien battle station that shoots out beams of directed energy powerful enough to blow up planets. The real universe makes much more extraordinary beams that can unleash in a few seconds as much energy as our sun will generate over its 10-billion-year lifetime. These beams blast out of imploding stars at over 99% the speed of light. They carry most of their energy in the form of gamma-rays-a lethal form of radiation that can penetrate bone and tear apart living cells. If our planet got caught in a nearby gamma-ray burst (GRB) the atmosphere would be largely stripped away.

The current record for a super-powerful GRB goes to a January 2019 outburst. The eruption came from a galaxy located so far away that the explosion actually happened 5 billion years ago. When the diluted radiation finally arrived at Earth, it was seen by our satellite sentries that monitor the sky for such fireworks: NASA's Swift and Fermi telescopes, in addition to the Major Atmospheric Gamma Imaging Cherenkov (MAGIC) telescopes on the Canary islands.

Hubble can't detect gamma-rays, but its sharp vision was used to see where the burst came from. The host galaxy of the GRB is actually one of a pair of colliding galaxies. The galaxy interactions may have contributed to the blast.

Research Box Title

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has given astronomers a peek at the location of the most energetic outburst ever seen in the universe-a blast of gamma-rays a trillion times more powerful than visible light. That's because in a few seconds the gamma-ray burst (GRB) emitted more energy than the Sun will provide over its entire 10-billion year life.

In January 2019, an extremely bright and long-duration GRB was detected by a suite of telescopes, including NASA's Swift and Fermi telescopes, as well as by the Major Atmospheric Gamma Imaging Cherenkov (MAGIC) telescopes on the Canary islands. Follow-up observations were made with Hubble to study the environment around the GRB and find out how this extreme emission is produced.

"Hubble's observations suggest that this particular burst was sitting in a very dense environment, right in the middle of a bright galaxy 5 billion light years away. This is really unusual, and suggests that this concentrated location might be why it produced this exceptionally powerful light," explained one of the lead authors, Andrew Levan of the Institute for Mathematics, Astrophysics and Particle Physics Department of Astrophysics at Radboud University in the Netherlands.

"Scientists have been trying to observe very high energy emission from gamma-ray bursts for a long time," explained lead author Antonio de Ugarte Postigo of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía in Spain. "This new Hubble observation of accompanying lower-energy radiation from the region is a vital step in our understanding of gamma-ray bursts [and] their immediate surroundings."

The complementary Hubble observations reveal that the GRB occurred within the central region of a massive galaxy. Researchers say that this is a denser environment than typically observed (for GRBs) and could have been crucial for the generation of the very-high-energy radiation that was observed. The host galaxy of the GRB is actually one of a pair of colliding galaxies. The galaxy interactions may have contributed to spawning the outburst.

Known as GRB 190114C, some of the radiation detected from the object had the highest energy ever observed. Scientists have been trying to observe such very high energy emission from GRBs for a long time, so this detection is considered a milestone in high-energy astrophysics, say researchers.

Previous observations revealed that to achieve this energy, material must be emitted from a collapsing star at 99.999% the speed of light. This material is then forced through the gas that surrounds the star, causing a shock that creates the gamma-ray burst itself.

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Hubble Studies Gamma-Ray Burst with the Highest Energy Ever Seen

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Release ID: 2019-56 The Star Wars film trilogies are known best for the iconic "Death Star," an alien battle station that shoots out beams of directed energy powerful enough to blow up planets. The real universe makes much more extraordinary beams that can unleash in a few seconds as much energy as our sun will generate over its 10-billion-year lifetime.

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📰 El telescopio MAGIC detecta el primer estallido de Rayos Gamma con las más altas energías

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📰 El telescopio MAGIC detecta el primer estallido de Rayos Gamma con las más altas energías

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Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias * IAC

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This ground-breaking achievement by MAGIC provides critical new insight for understanding the physical processes at work in the most powerful cosmic explosions. The results are published in two articles in the Nature Journal.
Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are brief and extremely powerful cosmic explosions, suddenly appearing in the sky, about once per day. They are thought to result from the collapse of massive stars or the merging of neutron stars in distant galaxies. They commence with an initial, very bright flash, called the prompt emission, with a duration ranging from a fraction of a second to hundreds of seconds. The prompt emission is accompanied by the so-called afterglow, a less brighter but longer-lasting emission over a broad range of wavelengths that fades with time.

The first GRB detected by the MAGIC telescopes, known as GRB 190114C, reveals for the first time the highest energy photons measured from these objects. This ground-breaking achievement by MAGIC provides critical new insight for understanding the physical processes at work in GRBs, which are still mysterious. The photons detected by MAGIC must originate from a process hitherto unseen in the afterglows of GRBs, clearly distinct from the physical process that is known to be responsible for their emission at lower energies.
MAGIC detection and multi-wavelength observations of GRB 190114C
On January 14th, 2019, a GRB was discovered independently by two space satellites: the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory and the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. The event was named GRB 190114C, and within 22 seconds, its coordinates in the sky were distributed as an electronic alert to astronomers worldwide, including the MAGIC Collaboration, which operates two 17m diameter Cherenkov telescopes located in the Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos (Garafía, La Palma).

Since GRBs appear at unpredictable locations in the sky and then rapidly fade, their observation by telescopes such as MAGIC requires a dedicated follow-up strategy. An automatic system processes in real time the GRB alerts from satellite instruments and makes the MAGIC telescopes point rapidly to the sky position of the GRB. The telescopes were designed to be very light and capable of fast repointing: despite the weight of 64 tons each, they can reach and start observing any given position in the sky in just about 25 seconds. MAGIC was able to start the observation of GRB 190114C just 50 seconds after the beginning of the GRB. María Victoria Fonseca, president of the MAGIC Collaboration Board notes: "The telescopes were designed to be very light and be able to move quickly. Despite weighing 64 tons each, they can rotate 180 degrees in just 25 seconds. Thanks to this, MAGIC started observing GRB 190114C only 50 seconds after its start".

The analysis of the resulting data for the first tens of seconds reveals emission of photons in the afterglow reaching teraelectronvolt (TeV) energies, that is, a trillion times more energetic than visible light. During this time, the emission of TeV photons from GRB 190114C was 100 times more intense than the brightest known steady source at TeV energies, the Crab Nebula. In this way, GRB 190114C became the record setter as the brightest known source of TeV photons. As expected for GRB afterglows, the emission faded quickly with time, similar to the afterglow emission that had been known at lower energies. The last glimpses were seen by MAGIC half an hour later.

For the very first time, the unambiguous detection of TeV photons from a GRB was announced by the MAGIC Collaboration to the international community of astronomers just a few hours after the satellite alerts, after a careful check of the preliminary data. This facilitated an extensive campaign of multi-wavelength (MWL) follow-up observations of GRB 190114C by over two dozens of observatories and instruments, providing a full observational picture of this GRB from the radio band to TeV energies. In particular, optical observations allowed a measurement of the distance to GRB 190114C. It was found that this GRB is located in a galaxy from which it took 4.5 billion years for the light to reach the Earth.
Highest energy photons from a newly revealed emission process
Although TeV emission in GRB afterglows had been predicted in some theoretical studies, it had remained observationally elusive for a long time, despite numerous searches at TeV energies over the past decades with various instruments, including MAGIC. What physical mechanism is behind the production of the TeV photons finally detected by MAGIC? These energies are much higher than what can be expected from synchrotron radiation, caused by high-energy electrons spiraling in magnetic fields. This process is understood to be responsible for the emission that had been previously observed at lower energies in GRB afterglows.

​ "The night we detected the GRB 190114C, it was in the control room of the MAGIC telescopes. From the first moment, we realized that the photons we were seeing passed the synchrotron radiation limit. These new results, together with the very comprehensive MWL data, provide the first unequivocal evidence for an additional, distinct emission process in the afterglowastrophysics of the Spanish community and one of the main authors of the results. The most likely origin of the TeV emission is the so-called inverse Compton process, where a population of photons are significantly kicked up in energy by colliding with high energy electrons.

"After more than 50 years since GRBs were first discovered, many of their fundamental aspects still remain mysterious", says Razmik Mirzoyan, the Spokesperson of the MAGIC Collaboration. "The discovery of gamma-ray emission from GRB 190114C in the new, TeV window of the electromagnetic spectrum shows that the GRB explosions are even more powerful than thought before. The wealth of new data on GRB 190114C acquired by MAGIC and the extensive MWL follow-up observations now offer important clues to unravel some of the mysteries concerning the physical processes at work in GRBs".

A comparative study of all previous GRB follow-ups by MAGIC suggests that GRB 190114C was not a particularly unique event except for its relative proximity (light took 4.5 billion years to reach the Earth), and that the successful detection owes to the excellent performance of the instrument. MAGIC has opened a new window to study GRBs. The results indicate we may be able to detect many more GRBs at TeV energies. This will pave the way for a much deeper understanding of these fascinating cosmic explosions.

The Spanish community has participated in MAGIC since its inception. Currently, the following are members of MAGIC: Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas, Medioambientales y Tecnológicas (CIEMAT), Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), Institut de Física d'Altes Energies (IFAE), Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona (UAB), Instituto de Ciencias del Cosmos de la Universidad de Barcelona (UB) and Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM). In addition, MAGIC's data centre is the Port d'Informació Científica (PIC), a collaboration between IFAE and CIEMAT.

"Teraelectronvolt emission from the γ-ray burst GRB 190114C"
"Observation of inverse Compton emission from a long γ-ray burst"

More information:
Max-Planck-Institute for Physics Press Release
Institut de Física d'Altes Energies Press Release

Spokesperson of the MAGIC Collaboration and Senior Astrophysicist at Max-Planck-Institute for Physics
Maria Victoria Fonseca, President of the MAGIC Collaboration Board and astrophysics of the coordinator of transitory sources of the MAGIC Collaboration and astrophysics of the

researcher of the MAGIC collaboration at the IACrepresentative of the Astroparticles research line at the IACprincipal investigator of the group of Astroparticles at the IAC

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MAGIC telescopes detect the first gamma-rays burst at very high energies

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This ground-breaking achievement by MAGIC provides critical new insight for understanding the physical processes at work in the most powerful cosmic explosions. The results are published in two articles in the Nature Journal. Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are brief and extremely powerful cosmic explosions, suddenly appearing in the sky, about once per day.

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📰 15 Minutos Mágicos: "Tormenta de meteoros"  aconteciendo este Jueves

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📰 15 Minutos Mágicos: "Tormenta de meteoros"  aconteciendo este Jueves

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A meteor storm that may consist of approximately 400 shooting stars will be on display on Thursday, November 21, 2019.

The meteor outburst is said to have originated from the Alpha Monocerotid meteor and viewers should expect to view its showcase for a duration of between 15 to 40 minutes.

Typically meteor showers occur as a result of the dust trails left behind by comets, colliding with the Earth's atmosphere. These showers tend to occur on a yearly basis and their origin comet is typically known to experts within the astronomy community. The Alpha Monocerotid Shower, however, is different in that astronomers do not know its origin. It has been theorized that is is a long-period comet that orbits the sun approximately once every five hundred years. It leaves behind a somewhat narrow dust trail that the Earth rarely encounters but when it does a meteor outburst unfolds. Earth has encountered this astronomical spectacle before throughout its historical lifespan with each instance creating a powerful meteor display:

1925: 1,000 shooting stars per hour ("meteor storm")

1935: 1,000 shooting stars per hour ("meteor storm")

1985: 700 shooting stars per hour ("meteor outburst")

1995: 400 shooting stars per hour ("meteor outburst")

2019: Between 100 ("meteor outburst") and 1,000 ("meteor storm") shooting stars per hour are predicted

If one is planning on catching a viewing of this spectacle within the night sky careful planning must be taken into consideration. Only persons located in North and South America, Europe and Africa will be able to see the outburst. It is predicted to unfold at 04:50 Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) on Friday, November 22.

Translated Times:

Los Angeles, CA: 8:15 p.m. PST on Thursday, November 21

Phoenix, AZ: 9:15 p.m. MST on Thursday, November 21

Dallas, TX: 10:15 p.m. CST on Thursday, November 21

Mexico City, Mexico: 10:15 p.m. CST on Thursday, November 21

New York City, NY & Washington DC: 11:15 p.m. EST on Thursday, November 21

Santiago, Chile: 1:15 a.m. CLST on Friday, November 22

São Paulo, Brazil: 1:15 a.m. BRT on Friday, November 22

Buenos Aires, Argentina: 1:15 a.m. ART on Friday, November 22

Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain: 4:15 a.m. WET on Friday, November 22

Cardiff, Edinburgh & London: 4:15 a.m. GMT on Friday, November 22

Madrid, Paris & Brussels: 5:15 a.m. CET on Friday, November 22

Marrakech: 5:15 a.m. CET on Friday, November 22

The meteor shower like many others gets its name from its location within the constellation of Monoceros, the Unicorn. One should face the more famous Orion and Gemini constellations for optimum viewing. Despite not originating from these respective constellations, viewers are advised to turn their heads in that direction. Europe is expected to have the best seat to the showcase as typically more shooting stars will be visible within the higher Monoceros. North and South America follow in second in terms of spectacle visibility.

To effectively ensure the best viewing, certain precautionary measures are advised:

1. Viewers are advised to find the darkest sky as possible. This is typically away from urban areas such as cities. One can also try to stand in the shadow of a building and ensure there is no bright light-blocking one's field of view.

2. Go outside twenty minutes before the scheduled time in order to get one's night vision perfect for viewing.

3. Try looking to the southeast as this the direction of Orion's Belt. This is east/southeast from North America and southwest in Europe. Then range your eyes slightly to the eastern direction. Lastly but most importantly, be patient and keep looking and avoid looking at any screen devices as this will kill one's night vision which took 20 minutes to achieve.

Be sure not to miss this spectacle as its next occurrence according to Jenniskens and Lyytinen, is in the year 2043, which isn't anytime soon.

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15 Magical Minutes: 'Meteor Storm' To Unfold On Thursday

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A meteor storm that may consist of approximately 400 shooting stars will be on display on Thursday, November 21, 2019. The meteor outburst is said to have originated from the Alpha Monocerotid meteor and viewers should expect to view its showcase for a duration of between 15 to 40 minutes...

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What am I looking at?

Meteor showers on Earth are caused by streams of meteoroids hitting our atmosphere. These meteoroids are sand- and pebble-sized bits of rock that were once released from their parent comet. Some comets are no longer active and are now called asteroids.

This visualization shows these meteoroid streams orbiting the Sun, some stretching to the outer regions of the solar system. Select the meteor shower in the menu to see the corresponding meteoroid stream in space. Their meteoroid orbits are based on those measured by NASA's CAMS video camera surveillance network, and were calculated by meteor astronomer Peter Jenniskens of the SETI Institute and NASA Ames Research Center.

This visualization is developed and hosted by Ian Webster.

How can I see a meteor shower?

Meteor showers are best seen on certain dark and clear nights. To see how many meteors per hour are visible from your location, go to this website and select the date, the shower, and your location.

Where should I go next?

If you like these sorts of interactive visualizations, take a look at Ian Webster's other tools, including Pluto, ancient Earth, or asteroids!

Can I use this on my site?

Sure! Use the following code to load the interactive visualization in an iframe. You must know the IAU number of your meteor shower, which you can look up here.

<iframe src="https://www.meteorshowers.org/view/iau-7" width="500" height="500" frameBorder="0"></iframe>

Please remember to attribute this site!

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3D visualization of NASA meteor shower data. Scientifically accurate and fully interactive.

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🌐 MicroNova y El Reverso Magnético | Actualización

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🌐 MicroNova y El Reverso Magnético | Actualización

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Micronova & Magnetic Reversal | Info Update

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Los pulsos pronunciados que detectan el ingreso de Rayos Cósmicos. La variación del ángulo Phi desde el 20.Nov. a aprox. 180° (dir. hacia la Tierra). Con la variación de Bz, Bt, la densidad, velocidad y temperatura.

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Note la caída y el zigzageo de los iones - por la llegada del plasma con carga +, pero de relativa corta duración, aprox. 9hrs. Note en los días atneriores,  la forma de la onda (muy poco pronunciada y algo descentrada) con pocas perturbaciones ayer, pero sobre todo antier, que es casi lisa versus los picos mas notorios en la imagen anterior del Campo Magnético.

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Un muy muy ligero incremento en la producción de Rayos X (llamaradas solares), línea azul

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Una sutil caída en la producción de protones libres (iones +), que continúan en muy bajo nivel (todo este año)

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Con más claridad el ingreso de de los rayos cósmicos, y las diferentes intensificaciones del viento solar

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Impacto registrado desde aprox. 10-11 am

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Impacto registrado desde aprox. 10-11 am

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Impacto registrado desde aprox. 05-06 am

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Impacto registrado desde aprox. 05-06 am

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Registro de impacto aprox. 04 am

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M6.4 CHIAPAS M6.3 ARGENTINA M6.3 RUSIA M6.0 LAOS - REPSOL NOV 21-28 2019

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Fast Wind Storms & Europa Plumes: Solar Storm Forecast 11-21-2019

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This week we finally have some good news for aurora photographers! A coronal hole that has brought us up to storm levels multiple times before is back and is sending us some fast solar wind yet again! We have already bumped up to unsettled conditions and could hit active conditions within the next 24 hours. Aurora field reporters, especially at high latitudes should be on the alert for aurora. We could even get some sporadic aurora at mid-latitudes over the next day or so. As for the Sun, unfortunately, we are back to spotless conditions with solar flux tanking back into the high 60s. This means poor radio propagation on Earth's dayside for next next week or more. GPS users, however, should be smiling since GPS reception on Earth's dayside should remain pretty decent overall. Learn the details of the coming solar storm and see a special segment I've included this week on newly confirmed water plumes on Jupiter's moon Europa!

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En esta semana en tenemos finalmente  algunas buenas noticias para los fotógrafos de Auroras! Un Hoyo Coronal que nos ha dado niveles de  de tormenta en varias ocasiones, nos está enviando todavía algo de Viento Solar rápido de nuevo! Hemos ya alcanzado condiciones de inestabilidad y podría alcanzar condiciones activas dentro de las próximas 24 hrs. Los reporteros de auroras, en especial a altas latitudes deben de estar en Alerta por Auroras.Podríamos tener  aún alguna aurora esporádica a latitudes medias el día de mañana. desafortunadamente  regresamos a condiciones de NO Manchas Solares con flujo solar de regreso a los altos 60s. Esto implica pobre propagación de ondas de radio en el lado de día para la próxima  semana o más. Los usuarios, sin embargo, podrán sonreír dado que la recepción de GPS  del lado de día permanece en buenos niveles. Infórmense de los detalles de la actual tormenta solar  y vea un segmento especial que he incluido en esta semana sobre la reciente confirmación de plumas de agua en Europa, una de las Luna !

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Earth Shaking Snow Making Hail Breaking Wind News 😉💨

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U.K weather update/ U.S weather & Solar Update/ 11-21-2019

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🚦 ACTUALIZACIÓN Sísmica y Planetaria║ Ditrianum

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🚦 ACTUALIZACIÓN Sísmica y Planetaria║ Ditrianum

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Seismic & Planetary Update 19 November 2019

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Debido a una geometría planetaria y lunar críticas este 21Nov, se espera que continúe el incremento en la actividad sísmica durante los próximos dos días. El período de tiempo más crítico será del 23 al 28 de Nov. con una alta probabilidad de una actividad sísmica mayor,  que potencialmente podría alcanzar una magnitud de 7.5+.