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EXERCISE 8
How much energy do gamma-ray bursts produce? The gamma-ray burst GRB031332 produces a flux of 8 * 10^(-10) Watts per square meter on Earth, for a period of about 90 seconds. A followup measurement shows that the burst occurred about 3000 Megaparsecs away. (a) What was the luminosity of this gamma-ray burst? How much energy did the explosion produce during the 90-second burst period? (b) How does that luminosity compare to that of the entire Milky Way galaxy? Remember that the Sun's luminosity is about 4 * 10^26 Watts. (c) The energy released by a supernova explosion is about 10^44 Joules. About how many times more energy was released by this gamma-ray burst? |