Host Galaxy
The afterglow of GRB 970508 reached a peak total luminosity 19.82 days after the burst was detected. It then faded with a power law slope over about 100 days. The afterglow eventually disappeared, revealing the burst's host, an actively star-forming dwarf galaxy with an apparent magnitude of V = 25.4 ± 0.15. The galaxy was well fitted by an exponential disk with an ellipticity of 0.70 ± 0.07. The redshift of GRB 970508's optical afterglow, z = 0.835, agreed with the host galaxy's redshift of z = 0.83, suggesting that, unlike previously observed bursts, GRB 970508 may have been associated with an active galactic nucleus.
Read more about this topic: GRB 970508
Famous quotes containing the words host and/or galaxy:
“Carlyle’s works, it is true, have not the stereotyped success which we call classic. They are a rich but inexpensive entertainment, at which we are not concerned lest the host has strained or impoverished himself to feed his guests. It is not the most lasting word, nor the loftiest wisdom, but rather the word which comes last.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“for it is not so much to know the self
as to know it as it is known
by galaxy and cedar cone,
as if birth had never found it
and death could never end it:”
—Archie Randolph Ammons (b. 1926)