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Post Info TOPIC: GRB041211
Blobrana


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RE: GRB041211
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Follow-up observations from the W.M. Keck Observatory measured the emission as it faded by an order of magnitude in the days following the blast, and picking up where PAIRITEL left off: Two nights of Keck observations combined with the PAIRITEL exposures provide a complete time history of the afterglow.
Infrared light has been seen before in the hours to days following a gamma-ray burst, but that emission is thought to come from interactions with the material around the explosion site.
The results show a burst that brightens, and then very rapidly fades after just nine minutes.
Eleven minutes later, the burst re-brightens, and gradually fades away again over the following days. Matching the light curve to well-understood physical processes, the team suggests that the burst had both a forward and reverse shock at later times, which left the origin of the initial flash a mystery.
It is thought that the initial flash must have been due to the internal shock, the process that creates the burst itself.


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Blobrana


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On December 19, 2004, using the PAIRITEL (Peters Automated Infrared Imaging Telescope) robotic telescope on Mt. Hopkins, Arizona, astronomers have detected a flash of infrared light accompanying the gamma ray burst GRB041211.


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Position(2000): RA=06:43:12 DEC=+20:23:42

"This is the first time anyone has seen infrared light simultaneously with a gamma-ray burst. This burst filled in a piece of the puzzle we didn't even know was missing." - Cullen Blake, graduate student at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
The orbiting Integral satellite first detected the GRB in the constellation Cassiopeia and radioed its coordinates to astronomers worldwide. (The burst was also only the third burst to be localized by the Swift satellite) The PAIRITEL began observation within seven minutes after it received the alert.


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Located at the Fred L. Whipple Observatory, PAIRITEL is the first fully "robotic" infrared telescope in North America dedicated to observing transient astronomical events. The telescope, used for several years in a major all-sky survey (2MASS), has been refurbished to work autonomously.

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