NASA Takes Viewers on a Tour of Distant Cosmic Object GRB150101B
These majestic mesmerizing views of distant cosmic object GRB 150101B were generated with data from NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory. In this breathtaking video, NASA takes you on a virtual tour of the celestial object giving you a unique view of a phenomenon we will never be able to witness first hand.
According to NASA, the detection of GRB 150101B was first reported as a gamma-ray burst detected by Fermi in January 2015. Further studies showed GRB150101B shared remarkable similarities to the neutron star merger and gravitational wave source discovered by Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) and its European counterpart Virgo in 2017 known as GW170817.
Now, the astronomers believe the two may even be related. “It's a big step to go from one detected object to two,” said Eleonora Troja, lead author of the study from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and the University of Maryland at College Park (UMCP).
“Our discovery tells us that events like GW170817 and GRB150101B could represent a whole new class of erupting objects that turn on and off in X-rays and might actually be relatively common.”
Troja and her colleagues believe both objects were most likely produced by a merger of two neutron stars. These coalescences generate a narrow jet of high-energy particles and an intense burst of gamma rays witnessed as a high-energy seconds-long quick flash.