{"id":33869,"date":"2022-12-07T09:55:10","date_gmt":"2022-12-07T04:25:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=33869"},"modified":"2025-04-20T02:22:56","modified_gmt":"2025-04-19T20:52:56","slug":"gamma-ray-burst-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/gamma-ray-burst-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Gamma Ray Burst"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><strong>What\u2019s in today\u2019s article?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Why in News?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>About GBR<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Significance of the latest finding<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>About DOT<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Why in News?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>A team of scientists has recorded a once-in-a-lifetime astronomical occurrence including a compact binary merger emitting <strong>long duration Gamma Ray Burst<\/strong> (GRB) coupled with kilonova emissions &#8211; a never-before scientifically acknowledged or proved combination.<\/li>\n<li>The 3.6-metre Devasthal Optical Telescope (DOT), maintained by Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences (ARIES), Nainital, was one of the key global telescopes that validated this rare combination.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>The Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs):<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Background of Gamma Ray Bursts<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/lh6.googleusercontent.com\/E7V09PE7Sk8DwCz-bAqImDVARrOJ7O44ryX3lDkstrdDPbRD1MwdqgN5NhmBPCF0nW-UZPiSFgSXGyaKD6QI6K88jEQOz1meo-u5d4Xr1IMRroK8qRbQrAD4pzDQyWQdsQvSTCDoMIAPlHDkCS681A\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Image Caption: Long and short gamma ray bursts<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>When a pair of <strong>binary compact systems<\/strong> &#8211; either two blackholes, dense celestial bodies or neutron stars, rotate in a spiral fashion for billions of years, their ultimate merger leads to release of <strong>short <\/strong>GRBs, which last for <strong>less than 2 seconds<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Traditionally, <strong>kilonova <\/strong>&#8211; the radiation emerging from the merger of neutron stars or any other binary systems, has been associated with short GRBs.<\/li>\n<li>On the other hand, when <strong>very massive stars die<\/strong>, the event results in the release of <strong>long <\/strong>GRBs and the associated gamma radiations last for <strong>more than 2 seconds<\/strong> or longer.<\/li>\n<li><strong>About GBRs:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>They are massive but<strong> extremely bright, high-energy short gamma radiations<\/strong> which get released when massive stars collapse or die in the Universe.<\/li>\n<li>The energy associated with GRBs is <strong>many folds larger than what Sun<\/strong> can emit in its entire lifetime, making its study key to understanding the life and death of stars in the Universe.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>What is unique about the latest finding?<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>The burst of high energy light identified as <strong>GRB211211A <\/strong>lasted for over 50 seconds and appeared nearby in the outskirts of the Milky Way &#8211; some one billion light years away.<\/li>\n<li>However, the properties of long duration GRB were missing, making the event unusual.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What is the significance of the recent scientific finding?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Scientists have, so far, associated short GRBs with supernovae (the explosion of a massive star).<\/li>\n<li>However, the latest study has called into question the previous theory, as scientists were unaware of any link between a<strong> long duration GRB and kilonovae.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>This could then mean that<strong> some processes are common<\/strong> between the long and short GRBs and <strong>their scientific classification now stands challenged<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>About the Devasthal Optical Telescope (DOT):<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The telescope, installed at Devasthal, Nainital, Uttarakhand, has the distinction of being the<strong> largest telescope in India<\/strong> for study of celestial objects at optical wavelengths.<\/li>\n<li>It was commissioned in the year <strong>2016 <\/strong>and is being maintained and operated by ARIES.<\/li>\n<li>It consists of a modern <strong>6-meter<\/strong> optical new technology telescope and enjoys the <strong>longitudinal advantage<\/strong> which facilitated the viewing of the events like the present one.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3><strong>Q1) What is bigger kilonova or supernova?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><strong>Supernova explosions are far bigger than those produced by a kilonova explosion<\/strong> due to the former ejecting more energy than the latter.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Q2) What happens if a gamma-ray burst hit Earth?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>A GRB would <strong>deplete the ozone layer in the upper atmosphere, allowing harmful UV radiation to reach the ground and thus have dire consequences for life<\/strong>. However, the ground-level ozone caused by the GRB would not be an additional hazard for life<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Scientists recorded a compact binary merger emitting long duration Gamma Ray Burst along with kilonova emissions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":33870,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-33869","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-mains-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33869\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}