LUBBOCK, Texas — A team of scientists that included a Texas Tech professor used multiple space and ground-based telescopes that included NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to observe a bright gamma-ray burst.
The team were able to identify the neutron star merger that generated the explosion. A press release said the Webb telescope helped the scientists detect the chemical element tellurium in the explosion’s aftermath.
Michael Fausnaugh, an assistant professor at Texas Tech University’s Department of Physics and Astronomy announced the findings with his team on Wednesday. The findings were published in the journal Nature.
The press release said the gamma ray-burst is the second brightest seen in over 50 years of observations, about 1,000 times brighter than a typical-gamma ray burst.
