CHENNAI: Indian space scientists are looking to solve the mystery of Gamma-ray bursts (GRB) with the help of ‘AstroSat’, the first space observatory from India which is regularly capturing GRB events with different spectral range and time. Despite the vast amount of data available, Gamma-ray bursts still remain a mystery. The long Gamma-ray bursts are associated with the newly formed black holes and short GRBs are supposed to come from the merger of the two compact objects.
“So far the Cadmium Zinc Telluride Imager (CZTI) in the ‘AstroSat’ has detected ten incidents of Gamma-ray bursts. We are studying the photons that struck the detector as to know how the radiation originates and the mechanisms of radiation works,” said Professor Dipankar Bhattacharya, Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA), Pune. There is also another section of scientists who believe that Gamma-ray bursts originate from neutron stars with an extremely high magnetic field.
AstroSat, India’s first dedicated multi-wavelength space observatory was launched on September 28, 2015. It has five payloads including CZTI for simultaneous multi-band observations of various astronomical events. The Indian scientists recently announced through the Gamma-ray Coordinates Network (GCN) circulars that the source was clearly detected in the 40-200 keV energy range through CZTI. They also reported another detection of the light curve created from double events will have far reaching implications in the understanding of the radiation mechanisms of Gamma-ray bursts.
“GRBs still remain a mystery. Other countries’ payloads have also captured the events of Gamma-ray bursts, but we detect in the spectral range which the other payloads are not sensitive to. We also detected some kind of polarisation activities through the CZTI,” Dipankar Bhattacharya said. “Right now we are studying the data and it will take some time before arriving at the conclusions as to why such rays are emitted from the cosmic sources.”
