Gamma-ray bursts have always captured the attention of astronomers since they’re the most energetic electromagnetic events known by scientists to occur in the Universe. What triggers them has mostly been a mystery in astrophysics.
Astronomers are now focused especially on the GN-z11-flash, which is thought to be a gamma-ray burst. The signal was detected over three years ago. According to a new article from ScienceAlert.com, the phenomenon has its origin in a place much closer to Earth than previously thought.
Could the signal have its origin in the Solar System?
Two new study papers are those sustaining the new theories about the GN-z11-flash. One of the studies was led by Charles Steinhardt, an astrophysicist from the Niels Bhor Institute in Denmark of the University of Copenhagen, and it ruled it more likely that the mysterious phenomenon originates from within the Solar System itself.
As for the second study, the team led by Michał Michałowski, an astronomer of the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poland, proposes something completely different. They are betting on a portion of space junk that belongs to the Russian Proto rocket. In other words, astronomers are not dealing with a gamma-ray burst, but only with a flash of light mistaken by such a cosmic phenomenon, if the theory turns out to be correct.
Michałowski declared for ScienceAlert.com:
This is a typical problem in astronomy – it’s difficult to measure distances,
An object with a given recorded brightness may be a faint nearby object or a luminous distant object. In both cases they would appear equally bright for us. The object in question turned out to be a very nearby piece of space junk, but its brightness was equally compatible with a huge stellar explosion at the edge of the observable Universe.
