A 1-in-10,000-year radiation burst was so powerful that it shook Earth's upper atmosphere

A new study has found that a 1-in-10,000-year radiation burst from space was so powerful that it shook the Earth's upper atmosphere last year. The Earth's atmosphere, whose ionisation stability is critical to the evolution and survival of life, is subjected to the effects of cosmic explosions that produce high-energy gamma-ray bursts (GRB).

The study, published in the journal Nature Communications on Tuesday (Nov 14), said that the long-lasting GRB of light was likely from a newborn black hole which was billions of light-years away.

The burst has been named GRB 221009A and the study, titled "Evidence of an upper ionospheric electric field perturbation correlated with a gamma-ray burst", said that burst is more commonly called the Brightest Of All Time (Boat).

GRB 221009A broke records when it struck Earth last year on Oct 9, coming from around 2.4 billion light-years from our planet. As per the study, the light blazing with up to 18 teraelectronvolts of energy in said to be the brightest space explosion ever recorded.

The researchers, including those from the University of L'Aquila in Italy, said that the large variations in the electric field of the Earth's upper ionosphere could be a result of the powerful GRB. The large variations in the electric field of the ionosphere are said to be at an altitude of some 500km.

As quoted by Science Alert, a team led by astrophysicist Mirko Piersanti of the University of L'Aquila and the National Institute of Astrophysics in Italy, said: "In this work, we present the evidence of variation of the ionospheric electric field at about 500 kilometres induced by the strong gamma-ray burst [that] occurred on October 9th, 2022."

"Using both satellite observations and a new ad hoc developed analytical model, we prove that the GRB 221009A deeply impacted the Earth's ionospheric conductivity, causing a strong perturbation not only in the bottom-side ionosphere but also in the top-side ionosphere (at around 500 kilometres)," it added.

What is gamma radiation?

The gamma radiation is the most energetic component of the electromagnetic spectrum. It is followed by X-radiation. Gamma-ray photons have a billion to a trillion times the energy of visible photons and are emitted by highly energetic events.