Kazakhstani astrophysicists are the first in the world to record a gamma-ray burst and received the earliest data on the light afterglow from 41 seconds to 30 minutes. The NASA telescope, which is in space orbit, began to observe the light "autoshock" at 110 seconds after the Kazakhstan observatory, El.kz reports with reference to the press service of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Republic of Kazakhstan.
The Nazarbayev University Telescope of the Astrophysical Observatory of Assa-Turgen on the night of March 28, 2023 made a unique and innovative observation of a cosmic event called a Gamma-ray burst. A gamma-ray burst is the brightest electromagnetic event occurring in the universe. Despite decades of efforts by the international scientific community, their exact nature and parameters remain unclear.
In their report, NASA employees confirmed that it was the Kazakh observatory that first recorded this burst of energy. Unique data from 41 seconds to 110 seconds of the burst is available only from domestic astrophysicists. It is known that the next ground-based telescope, one of the 14 observatories that also conducted observations, was able to start tracking the gamma-ray burst only 30 minutes after our observatory.
"The gamma-ray burst is unique in that it occurred 5 billion light-years away. It is assumed that the destruction of dust is the cause of the color change at the earliest stage of the gamma-ray burst. To observe such phenomena at an early stage, a telescope is required, which moves very quickly and simultaneously captures several wavelengths, "said Tokhtarkhan Komesh, a researcher at the Energy and Space Laboratory of Nazarbayev University.
Nobel Prize winner, one of the outstanding astrophysicists and cosmologists George Fitzgerald Smoot III personally congratulated the specialists of the Assa-Turgen Observatory.
"This is a big step forward in observational science. It is important to recognize that this depended not only on the vision, financing and work on the manufacture and installation of an automated telescope and instrument system, but also on the high professionalism of the team. Ahead is the most interesting, the processing and analysis of valuable data," he said.
The observed data is currently being carefully analyzed by a team of researchers. The analysis is expected to shed light on the nature of unexplored gamma-ray bursts.