Faster Than the Speed of Light by Lucius Parhelion

“However, our scenario involves Cherenkov radiation, a type of light created by superluminal motion that was not previously thought to be important in generating the light curves of gamma-ray bursts,” Professor Nemiroff added.

“This superluminal blast explanation retains many characteristics of accepted gamma-ray burst jet models.” “You would see waves created by each skip of the approaching stone in reverse order, with waves from the most recent skip arriving first and those from the initial skip arriving last.” “The frequently-hopping stone moves through the air between hops faster than the waves it generates move through water.”

“A good way to visualize this superluminal motion is to imagine someone on one side of a pond skipping a stone across the water in your direction,” Professor Hakkila said. These proposed jets, however, do not violate the Einstein’s relativity because they only move faster than light does through the jet medium, not faster than light through vacuum. Michigan Technological University’s Professor Robert Nemiroff and Professor Jon Hakkila from the College of Charleston propose that these jets could reach superluminal speeds and create the time-reversibility seen in light curves of the gamma-ray bursts. Others happen when two neutron stars, superdense remnants of stellar explosions, merge.īoth kinds of cataclysmic events create jets of particles that move near the speed of light.

Most occur when some types of massive stars run out of fuel and collapse to create new black holes. Gamma-ray bursts are the most luminous explosions in the Universe. Image credit: DESY / Science Communication Lab. An artist’s impression of a particle jet emanating from a black hole at the center of a blazar.

Faster Than the Speed of Light by Lucius Parhelion