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Rabat – Exciting news for sky gazers as the Oukaimeden Observatory’s telescope near Marrakech detected a Gamma-Ray Burst (GRB) afterglow on May 14.
Morocco’s news agency MAP quoted a statement from the observatory as indicating that the afterglow was detected by the MOSS telescope.
The observatory detected the afterglow at 8 a.m. after an alert was given by NASA’s FERMI space telescope and the European Space Agency’s Integral satellite, which are both dedicated to detecting Gamma Bursts.
Gamma-ray bursts also known as GRBS are quick flashes of y-rays, which are considered to be the most explosive phenomena in the universe.
The Oukaimeden observatory said that its MOSS telescope detected an explosion on May 14, which gave risk to the signal.
“Eight hours after receiving the alert, we pointed the Oukaimeden MOSS telescope towards the position indicated by the NASA and ESA telescope,” the observatory said.
Zouhair Bekhaldoun, teacher-researcher at the Marrakech-based University of Sciences Semlalia and the directory of the observatory of Cadi Ayyad University in Marrakech said the Oukaimeden observatory telescope is the only one in this part of the globe to have detected this phenomenon.
Oukaimeden Observatory is equipped with several telescopes to observe similar universe wonders.
In addition to the Moss Telescope, the observatory is also equipped with the OWL Telescope of the South Korean Space Agency and the telescopes of the Moroccan Astrophotography Associations.
NASA defines GRBs as short-lived bursts of gamma-ray light, known as the most energetic form of light.
“Lasting anywhere from a few milliseconds to several minutes, GRBs shine hundreds of times brighter than a typical supernova and about a million trillion times as bright as the sun,” said NASA.
According to the US space agency, there are two types of GRBS: long and short duration bursts.
Long-duration bursts last from two seconds to a few hundreds of seconds, while short-duration bursts can last less than two seconds.
The long-duration bursts are associated with “the deaths of massive stars in supernovas,” while the short-duration bursts are associated with the “merger of two neutron stars into a black hole,” according to NASA.
Meanwhile, the US agency noted, the short duration burst could be also associated with the murder of a neutron star with a black hole to form a larger black hole.
