Physicist Lyakhov spoke about the version of the man-made origin of the largest gamma-ray burst

The situation is truly out of the ordinary. Let us remind you that we are talking about the most powerful gamma-ray burst in the entire history of our civilization, GRB 221009A, recorded on October 9, 2022. The event was called BOAT – The brightest of all time – “The brightest of all time.” It turned out to be 70 times brighter than any other gamma-ray emission observed by scientists.

According to one of the co-authors of the discovery, professor of Moscow State University, doctor of physical and mathematical sciences Vladimir Lipunov, GRB 221009A was discovered by several space observatories belonging to different countries, such as the USA, Italy, Great Britain, and Russia. Moreover, it was Russian scientists from the State Astronomical Institute named after. Sternberg Moscow State University were the first to accurately determine the place from where the beam was directed to the Earth, having traveled billions of light years – this is the constellation Strel.

The flash, with a power of more than 100 million electron volts, lasted more than five minutes, indicating a “long” gamma-ray burst. According to scientists, these are born during the “death” of a star, which turns into a black hole, or during the merger of two neutron stars.

According to ESA, whose specialists also observed the event using the Integral space telescope, the gamma-ray burst literally “hit the Earth.” “The explosion caused significant disturbances in the ionosphere of our planet,” the scientists write in the article. “Such disturbances are usually associated with events involving energetic particles on the Sun, but this event was the result of the explosion of a star almost two billion light years away. Analysis of the explosion’s consequences may provide information about the causes of mass extinctions in Earth’s history.”

Study author Pietro Ubertini from the National Institute of Astrophysics (Italy) notes that the gamma-ray burst GRB 221009A was 10 times stronger than the most powerful burst observed previously. “Statistically, a beam of this intensity reaches the Earth only once every 10,000 years,” says Ubertini.

He further provides evidence of an unprecedented event: “Within 800 seconds of exposure, gamma rays activated lightning detectors in India, instruments in Germany recorded signs that the Earth’s ionosphere was disrupted by the explosion for several hours.” It was this extreme amount of energy that prompted the team at the National Institute of Astrophysics to better study the impact of the burst on the Earth’s ionosphere, he said.

Help “MK”. The ionosphere is the upper layer of the Earth’s atmosphere, which extends at an altitude of 50 to 1000 km. It is characterized by a significant content of free electrons and ions.

This was not difficult to do, since Ubertini and his colleague Mirko Piersanti from the University of L’Aquila are members of the CSES (Chinese Seismo-Electromagnetic Satellite) scientific team, which monitors changes in the ionosphere during increased solar activity and earthquakes.

“It is remarkable,” Laura Hayes, a scientist and solar physicist at ESA, later said, “that this disturbance affected the lowest layers of the Earth’s ionosphere, located just tens of kilometers above the surface of our planet, leaving an imprint comparable to that of a large solar flare.” .

This imprint manifested itself in the form of increased ionization in the lower part of the ionosphere.

In the worst case, according to ESA officials, the explosion could not only affect the ionosphere, but also damage the Earth’s ozone layer. They suggested that such an effect is a possible cause of some of the mass extinctions that are known to have occurred on Earth in the past.

Commentary by the Deputy Director for Scientific Work of the Institute of Geosphere Dynamics named after. Sadovsky RAS Andrey Lyakhov:

– We are talking about a galactic gamma-ray flare, which, like solar flares, had an impact on the middle and lower atmosphere of the Earth, leading to a short-term burst of ionization. This event was recorded by many monitoring stations at an altitude of 40-60 km from the Earth’s surface.

– Where in Russia are such stations located?

– In Kamchatka. Our station recorded an effect in the ionosphere that lasted as long as the flare itself. Last week, a scientific paper came out saying that the gamma-ray burst led to significant and longer-lasting variations in the electric field measured from Earth between its surface and the ionosphere. That is, this outbreak had an impact on the global current circuit existing in the Earth’s atmosphere.

– Could she cause the aurora?

– No, these are completely different energies.

– Could it “cause significant disturbances in the ionosphere,” as they say in the European Space Agency?

– Hardly. The event was too short to ruin anything. The particles penetrated our ionosphere, and an additional short-lived layer of additional ionization appeared at an altitude of 30-60 km above the Earth. The degree of this ionization was small, it was noticed only by radio equipment and the global current circuit, and after the disappearance of the flash, the disturbance disappeared. The flashlight was turned off and the light went out.

– Could damage to the ionosphere have been the impetus for the Turkish earthquake?

– To date, no scientifically proven physical mechanisms of the effect of ionizing radiation on seismic activity exist. There is a lot of speculation on this topic.

– Is there evidence that such gamma-ray bursts cannot be man-made?

– This is for science fiction writers. In my opinion, natural objects are considered the source of such bursts. There are versions that they may arise due to the merger of black holes or due to the collapse of stars.

Help “MK”. Gamma-ray bursts are the most powerful electromagnetic explosions in our Universe. They were discovered by accident, and, oddly enough, the arms race helped: the satellites were looking for gamma radiation on Earth, which could indicate the creation of nuclear weapons by a potential enemy, but instead one day they found a signal “sent” from the opposite side of the Universe. It is now known that such radiation is emitted either by the merger of two neutron stars (then short gamma-ray bursts are obtained, lasting up to 1-2 seconds), or by a dying star that turns into a supernova (long gamma-ray bursts, up to several minutes).