2023-10-27 19:15:20
Astronomers have captured the creation of the rare chemical element tellurium at a point in the cosmos, located about 900 million light-years away from Earth.
This creation of tellurium seems to have occurred within the framework of a very violent and explosive phenomenon: the collision and fusion between two neutron stars. The catastrophe is also the apparent cause of an explosion of the type known as a kilonova and a tremendous gamma ray flash, cataloged under the name GRB 230307A.
A neutron star is the ultra-compressed core that remains after the death of a star in an explosion of the type known as a supernova. If the core is compressed further, the resulting object is no longer a neutron star but a black hole.
A kilonova is an explosion produced by the merger of a neutron star with a black hole or another neutron star.
Researchers have used multiple observatories, located on Earth or off Earth, to observe this exceptionally bright gamma-ray flash and identify the merger of neutron stars. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), from NASA, ESA and CSA (respectively the US, European and Canadian space agencies) has helped scientists detect the chemical element tellurium after the explosion.
They have also been very useful in observations from NASA’s Fermi gamma-ray space telescope and NASA’s Swift space observatory.
The research team is led by Andrew Levan of Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands and the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom.
Location of the GRB 230307A gamma ray burst and the creation of an amount of tellurium large enough to have been detected about 900 million light-years away. (Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, A. Levan (Radboud University and University of Warwick))
It is likely that other elements close to tellurium on the periodic table (such as iodine, necessary for much of life on Earth) are also present among the material generated by the catastrophe.
Although neutron star mergers have long been theorized to be ideal “pressure cookers” for making some of the rarest elements substantially heavier than iron, astronomers have so far encountered several obstacles in obtaining solid evidence of that. Chief among them is the fact that kilonovae are extremely rare, making them difficult to observe and analyze.
Short-lived gamma-ray bursts, typically lasting no more than two seconds, may be byproducts of these rare fusion events. In contrast, long-lived gamma-ray bursts can last several minutes and are usually associated with the explosive death of a massive star (supernova).
The case of GRB 230307A is quite unusual. Discovered by the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope in March, it holds the record for being the second brightest gamma-ray burst seen in more than half a century of observations. It reached a brightness about a thousand times greater than that of ordinary gamma-ray bursts, which are usually observed by the Fermi space telescope. Furthermore, it lasted 200 seconds, placing it firmly in the category of long-lived gamma-ray bursts, despite its different origin.
The study on this GRB, the kilonova and the creation of tellurium is titled “Heavy element production in a compact object merger observed by JWST”. And it has been published in the academic journal Nature. (Source: NCYT from Amazings)
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