Cosmic Gamma Ray Bursts

Gamma ray bursts (GRBs) are astronomical phenomena detected at highest energies. The gamma ray photons carry energies on the order of mega-electronovolts and arrive to us from the point-like sources that are uniformly distributed on the sky. A typical burst has a form of a pulse that lasts for about a minute. As the Earth atmosphere is not transparent to the very high energy radiation, the bursts are detected by means of the telescopes onboard satellites that are placed on the orbit. The total energetics of GRB events, which is given by the integrated energy flux by the detector unit area, implies that we are witnessing very powerful explosions, where an enormously great power is released within a short time. There is only one way to obtain such huge energies in cosmos: the disruption of a star.