Optical Counterpart of a Gamma-Ray Burst
Discovery image of
the optical counterpart of a Gamma-Ray Burst (GRB). OT: Optical Transient.
The left panel shows the part of the sky where the GRB occured as seen
by the
William Herschel Telescope. The right panel shows the same part of the
sky only
a few days later with the Isaac Newton Telescope, when the source had
already
become much fainter. After more than two decades of intensive searches for
signs in the visible light of these extremely energetic events in the
Universe, these
two images show that GRBs can be spotted with optical telescopes from the
ground. This discovery is helping scientists to unreveal the true
nature of the
cataclysmic events known as Gamma-Ray Bursts.
Javier Méndez
jma@ing.iac.es