Fermi Unveils Shining Mystery, Gamma Rays Behind Tycho's Star

One of the brightest star that mankind has seen with naked eyes, is the Tycho's star named after Tycho Brahe-the Danish astronomer who first reported it in 1572. However a mystery as to how it is so bright was always looming over it. It is recently solved by modern day astronomers with the help of #-Link-Snipped-# Fermi telescope. The Large Area #-Link-Snipped-# (LAT) of Fermi was the reason behind this breakthrough.

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Image Credit: Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

Francesco Giordano at the University of Bari and the National Institute of Nuclear Physics in Italy is also the lead author of the recent paper presented in this regard in #-Link-Snipped-# on December 7. The paper is an attempt to describe the actual process happening to make the tycho's star shine. In simple terms, it is cosmic phenomenon in which certain particles travelling at the speed of light makes #-Link-Snipped-#.

The process is basically the production of Pion. A pion is the result of collision of a fast moving and a slow moving proton. The resultant Pion from this collision weighs just 14% of mass of proton. The particle interaction time which produces the light weight Pion is merely 10 millionth of a Billionth of second. The Pion then decays into #-Link-Snipped-#.

The scientists were lucky to use Fermi as most of the radiation in the cosmos cannot be tracked back to its origin owing to the fact that the radiation is deflected due to the magnetic field forces scattered throughout the universe. The Large Area telescope of Fermi is so much advanced that it can get deeper insights in the Gamma phenomenon and can scan the entire sky within three hours. The phenomenon of producing Gamma rays takes place when the cosmic rays strike interstellar gas and light emitted from stars. The same is evident when the gamma rays from the Tycho’s supernova remnants are detected by Fermi.

The phenomenon which Tycho reported in the late 16th century was of a young supernova. Being new was the reason that it was brighter than others. The brightness of the star was witnessed for roughly around 15 months. It is widely believed in the scientific community that when a supernova which is the later stage when a dying star explodes, the energy is released in the form of rapidly expanding sphere of gas combined with the blast's shockwave. The shockwave has enough power to bring about the acceleration of the particles as described earlier. The range of this energy typically extends for thousands of light years. Tycho's phenomenon being young still has a lot of magnetic energy to support the acceleration of particle than the older remnants which have eventually weakened magnetic field.

NASA - NASA's Fermi Shows That Tycho's Star Shines in Gamma Rays will take care of the theories which will be established in future regarding cosmic field. It will also prove to be a testing point for other researches. It will be interesting to know more about the accelerating mechanism of protons!