NASA’s Telescope Finds Antimatter Destruction In Biggest Explosion Since The Big Bang

On Friday, 26 July, a groundbreaking discovery was published in the journal Science. Scientists claim that NASA’s telescope Fermi has detected what may be antimatter destruction in a gamma-ray burst at 99.9% the speed of light. This event may be a result of the most powerful explosion since the Big Bang!

This explosion was a gamma-ray burst (GRB) that was first detected on 9 October 2022 by NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope and the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory. It was named GRB 221009A. The burst’s immense power gave it the nickname “Brightest Of All Time” or the “BOAT.”

Breakthrough In GRBs Studying

Scientists believe the BOAT was caused by a supernova explosion from a massive star dying and collapsing about 2.4 million light-years away. Additionally, this event likely created a black hole.

“Just a few minutes after the BOAT erupted, Fermi’s Gamma-ray Burst Monitor recorded an unusual energy peak that caught our attention. When I first saw that signal, it gave me goosebumps. Our analysis since then shows it to be the first high-confidence emission line ever seen in 50 years of studying GRBs,”  said research leader Maria Edvige Ravasio from Radboud University.

What Are The GRBs?

Most GRBs happen when massive stars, at least eight times bigger than the sun, run out of fuel. Their cores collapse, forming spinning black holes that shoot out jets of matter at nearly the speed of light. When these jets are aimed directly at Earth, we see them as gamma-ray bursts (GRBs).

How Powerful The GRBs Are?

GRBs are so intense that if one occurred within a few thousand light-years of Earth, it could destroy life by damaging or obliterating our atmosphere. Despite the danger, the BOAT quickly stood out among these powerful events.

BOAT’s Impact On Earth

Scientists figured out that such a bright and powerful GRB would appear in our sky only once every 10,000 years. Even though the BOAT happened 2.4 billion light-years away, it still affected Earth’s atmosphere.

On October 9, 2022, the intense gamma-ray light from the BOAT overwhelmed most of the orbiting detectors, including those on Fermi, preventing a precise measurement of its peak power. However, about five minutes later, as the burst dimmed, Fermi was able to observe it again and detected an unusual feature in its light, known as a “putative emission line.”

BOAT’s Unusual Feature

The researchers have a theory about what caused this feature. Every type of particle has a “twin” made of antimatter. When these particles meet, they destroy each other and release energy. The unusual feature seen in the BOAT might come from electrons and their antimatter twins, called positrons, meeting and annihilating (being destroyed).

“When an electron and a positron collide, they disappear and create gamma rays with a specific energy,” explained Gor Oganesyan from the Gran Sasso Science Institute. “Because we’re observing this in a jet moving nearly at the speed of light, the energy of the gamma rays appears much higher than usual.”

Solutions Are Yet To Come

If they’re correct, the particles must have been travelling at about 99.9% of the speed of light before they vanished.

“After studying these amazing cosmic explosions for decades, we still don’t fully understand how these jets work,” commented Elizabeth Hays, the Fermi project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, on the BOAT findings. “Finding clues like this is truly remarkable.”