Publication Date:
2000-11-04
Description:
We report on the discovery of two emission features observed in the x-ray spectrum of the afterglow of the gamma-ray burst (GRB) of 16 December 1999 by the Chandra X-ray Observatory. These features are identified with the Ly(alpha) line and the narrow recombination continuum by hydrogenic ions of iron at a redshift z = 1.00 +/- 0.02, providing an unambiguous measurement of the distance of a GRB. Line width and intensity imply that the progenitor of the GRB was a massive star system that ejected, before the GRB event, a quantity of iron approximately 0.01 of the mass of the sun at a velocity approximately 0.1 of the speed of light, probably by a supernova explosion.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Piro, L -- Garmire, G -- Garcia, M -- Stratta, G -- Costa, E -- Feroci, M -- Meszaros, P -- Vietri, M -- Bradt, H -- Frail, D -- Frontera, F -- Halpern, J -- Heise, J -- Hurley, K -- Kawai, N -- Kippen, R M -- Marshall, F -- Murakami, T -- Sokolov, V V -- Takeshima, T -- Yoshida, A -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2000 Nov 3;290(5493):955-8.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Istituto Astrofisica Spaziale, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR), Via Fosso del Cavaliere, 00133 Roma, Italy. piro@ias.rm.cnr.it〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11062121" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
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Chemistry and Pharmacology
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Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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