Finally a Gamma Ray Burster Shows Optical and X‐Ray Afterglows
JUN 01, 1997
We don’t know whether the enigmatic gamma‐ray bursters are near or very far away. But now, at long last, we’re beginning to accumulate vital clues at other wavelengths.
DOI: 10.1063/1.881761
After decades of looking in vain, astronomers have finally found the optical and x‐ray “afterglow” of a gamma‐ray burster (GRB), together with a fuzzy object that may well be its parent galaxy. Of the several thousand GRBs that have been recorded by orbiting gamma detectors since the early 1970s, the one detected by the Italian‐Dutch BeppoSAX satellite on 28 February is the first, and so far the only one, for which a transient or persistent counterpart has been identified at any other wavelength.
© 1997. American Institute of Physics
