Visible light from a source 10 billion light years away from Earth was captured by three telescopes on the night of 19-20 June 2021. Two of them – robotic telescopes – are operated by Czech institutions – D50 in Ondřejov is managed by the Astronomical Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic (ASÚ), and the other, FRAM-ORM, is located on the Spanish island of La Palma. The third telescope, Mini-MegaTORTORA, is located in Nizhny Archiz, Russia. An international team has published a study of this extraordinary source in the May issue of the journal Nature Astronomy.
The gamma-ray burst (GRB) on 19 June 2021 is most likely of the type where a massive star enters the final stages of its evolution and collapses under its own gravity. The collapse is thought to lead to the formation of a rapidly rotating black hole, onto which material from the stellar envelope falls. This process causes the black hole to produce two powerful, narrow jets that pierce through the rest of the stellar envelope. The jets last for tens of seconds, during which time observers on Earth have found them to be the most energetic sources from space.
Source / more: ASU webpage
