A telescope allowed researchers to peer inside one of the most energetic explosions in the universe.
Gamma ray burst are massive explosions that occur when a star collapses in on itself and creates a black hole, a NASA news release reported. The researchers were able to observe a magnetic field in the center of the burst.
The black hole formed by the self-destructing star send a jet of particles through the star and into space at the speed of light.
NASA's Swift satellite detected gamma ray burst, dubbed GRB 120308A, in 2012.
"Just four minutes after it received Swift's trigger, the telescope found the burst's visible afterglow and began making thousands of measurements," lead researcher Carole Mundell, who heads the gamma-ray burst team at the Astrophysics Research Institute, said in the news release.
The satellite was fitted with a special device called the RINGO2 which can detect the preferred direction (polarization) of gamma rays.
Energy is emitted when the speeding gamma rays crash into their surroundings and begin to slow down; the impact causes a shock wave to shoot both outwards and inwards.
"One way to picture these different shocks is by imagining a traffic jam," Mundell said. "Cars approaching the jam abruptly slow down, which is similar to what happens in the forward shock. Cars behind them slow in turn, resulting in a wave of brake lights that moves backward along the highway, much like the reverse shock."
Gamma ray burst models suggest the event will exhibit a strong polarized emission. The structured magnetic field is believed to act as the "central engine" that fuels the burst.
Over the course of the event RINGO2 captured 5,600 photographs of the burst's afterglow. Past studies have put polarization of these events at only about 10 percent, but RINGO2 captured it at a high of 28 percent.
"This is a remarkable discovery that could not have occurred without the lickety-split response times of the Swift satellite and the Liverpool Telescope," Neil Gehrels, the Swift principal investigator at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md, said.
