Gamma-ray Burst Emission Mechanisms - Reverse Shocks and The Optical Flash

Reverse Shocks and The Optical Flash

There can be "reverse shocks", which propagate back into the shocked matter once it begins to encounter the interstellar medium. The twice-shocked material can produce a bright optical/UV flash, which has been seen in a few GRBs, though it appears not to be a common phenomenon.

Read more about this topic:  Gamma-ray Burst Emission Mechanisms

Famous quotes containing the words reverse, shocks, optical and/or flash:

    We came home from the ridotto so late, or rather so early, that it was not possible for me to write. Indeed we did not go ... till past eleven o’clock: but nobody does. A terrible reverse of the order of nature! We sleep with the sun, and wake with the moon.
    Frances Burney (1752–1840)

    Vice, in its true light, is so deformed, that it shocks us at first sight; and would hardly ever seduce us, if it did not at first wear the mask of some virtue.
    Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)

    There is an optical illusion about every person we meet.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning.
    Bible: New Testament, Luke 10:18.