Radioactive glow as smoking gun

On June 3rd 2013 at 15:49 UT NASA's Swift satellite detected an intense flash of γ -rays known as a short γ-ray burst. Follow-up observations by the Hubble Space Telescope revealed infrared emission that was present 9 days after the burst, but had faded away after 30 days. This infrared transient is likely the first ever observed example of a "macro-nova", emission that is produced by the radioactive decay of very heavy nuclei that have been freshly synthesized in the merger of a compact binary system consisting of either two neutron stars or a neutron star with a black hole. If this interpretation is correct, the observation could have profound consequences for high-energy astrophysics, cosmic nucleosynthesis and detections of gravitational waves.

Stephan Rosswog and Oleg Korobkin fron the Oskar Klein Centre explain the importance of this observations.

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Видео Radioactive glow as smoking gun канала The Oskar Klein Centre