Scientists find that bursts of gamma rays may exceed the speed of light and cause time-reversibility.
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An artist's drawing of a particle jet emanating from a black
hole at the center of a blazar. |
According to Einstein’s theory of general relativity,
nothing can travel faster than the speed of light in a vacuum. Yet in space
many strange things happen, including a new proposal by two astrophysicists
that blasts creating bursts of gamma rays may be able to speed up faster than
light, going superluminal.
Yet, this research by the astrophysicists Jon Hakkila of the
College of Charleston and Robert Nemiroff of the Michigan Technological
University is not going against Einstein’s theory. What the scientists found is
that while these bursts surpass the speed of light in surrounding gas clouds,
that only happens in the jet mediums, not in a vacuum.
The astrophysicists also think that these superluminal jets
can create the time-reversibility that can be observed in gamma-ray burst light
curves.
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Jet bursting out of a blazar. Black-hole-powered galaxies
called blazars are the most common sources detected by NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray
Space Telescope. |
Jon Hakkila likens what they found to skipping stones across
the pond. If someone was to throw such a stone into the water towards you, the
stone would go through the air in between hops faster than the waves that it
causes are moving through the water. As it gets closer, you will see the waves
that are produced by each skip in reverse order. The most recently created ones
will get to you first and those from the early skips along the water would come
last.
“Standard gamma-ray burst models have neglected time-reversible light curve properties,” Hakkila explained. “Superluminal jet motion accounts for these properties while retaining a great many standard model features.”