Entries from March 2008 ↓

I think the title says it all.

Last week, the “Pi of the Sky” (righteous name) telescope in Poland spotted and recorded the very first images of a black hole forming.

From their site:

2008.03.19 “Pi of the Sky” telescope detected the brightest ever optical outburst from a distant universe. The explosion happened 7.5 billion light years from the Earth, halfway across the visible Universe. The telescope is only 71 mm in diameter.

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The outburst was also detected in gamma rays by “Swift” satellite proving that it was so called Gamma Ray Burst denoted as GRB 080319B (2nd one on 2008.03.19). Probably, it was the death of a massive star and the birth of a black hole. Optical observations during the first minute of the burst are crucial to understand the fenomenon(sic). The “Pi of the Sky” observation combined with the Swift gamma-ray data for the first time confirmed with 10s precision that optical and gamma-ray emission start simultaneously.