GRB 050509B

GRB 050509b

Artist’s impression of the gamma-ray burst
Detection
Detection time 04:00:19.23 UTC
May 9, 2005
Detected by Swift
Duration 40±4 ms
Position
Right ascension 12h 36m 13.9s
Declination +28° 59′ 01″
Redshift 0.225
See also: Gamma-ray burst, Category:Gamma-ray bursts

GRB 050509B was a gamma ray burst (GRB) observed by the NASA Swift satellite on May 9, 2005. It was the first short duration GRB for which an accurate positional measurement was made, accurate enough to locate it near to an elliptical galaxy lying at a redshift of 0.225.

The significance of this finding is that it lends support to the theory that short bursts are formed during the catastrophic merger of two neutron stars, or a neutron star and a black hole. The orbital decay (via gravitational radiation) of stellar binaries consisting of these exotic compact objects is believed to take hundreds of millions of years, hence gamma ray bursts produced this way would be expected to be located in old (misleadingly called "early type") galaxies. In contrast, long-duration gamma ray bursts, which are believed to result from the collapse of a single massive star, are expected to be located preferentially in young galaxies.

References