A Burst Of Light From A Newborn Black Hole Billions Of Light-years Away In Space And Time Has Struck

ScienceAlert

Record Space Explosion Was So Powerful It Shook Earth's Atmosphere

A burst of light from a newborn black hole billions of light-years away in space and time has struck Earth with such power, it rattled the p

A burst of light from a newborn black hole billions of light-years away in space and time has struck Earth with such power, it rattled the planet's upper atmosphere. The gamma-ray burst GRB 221009A shattered records as it flared in the darkness of space in October 2022 some 2.4 billion light-years from Earth, its light blazing with up to 18 teraelectronvolts of energy in what is regarded as the brightest space explosion ever recorded. Now, scientists have determined that the explosion was so powerful that it caused large variations in the electric field of Earth's ionosphere, at an altitude of some 500 kilometers (310 miles). "In this work we present the evidence of variation of the ionospheric electric field at about 500 kilometers induced by the strong gamma-ray burst [that] occurred on October 9th, 2022," write a team led by astrophysicist Mirko Piersanti of the University of L'Aquila and the National Institute of Astrophysics in Italy.

Continue Reading.