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Once there was a star,
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like everything else, she was born
grilled (?) to be about 30x
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the mass of our sun
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and lived for a very long time.
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Exactly how long?
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People cannot really tell.
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Just like everything in life,
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she reached the end of her
regular star days
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when her heart, the core of her life,
exhausted its fuel.
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But that was no end.
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she transformed into a supernovae,
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and in the process, releasing a tremendous
of energy,
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outshining the rest of the galaxy,
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and emitting, in one second,
the same amount of energy
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our sun will release in 10 days.
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And she evolved into another role
in our galaxy.
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Supernovae explosions are very extreme.
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But the ones that emit gamma rays
are even more extreme.
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In the process of becoming
a supernovae,
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the interior of the star collaposes
under its own weight.
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And it starts rotating ever-faster.
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Like an ice skater when pulling
their arms in close to their body.
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In that way, it starts rotating very fast
and it increases, powerfully,
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its magnetic field.
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The matter around the star
is dragged around,
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and some energy from that rotation
is transferred to that matter
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and the magnetic field is increased
even further.
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In that way, our star had extra energy
to outshine the rest of the galaxy
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in brightness and gamma ray emission.
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My star, the one in my story,
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became what is known as a magnetar.
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And just for your information,
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the magnetic field of a magnetar
is 1,000 trillionx
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the magnetic field of earth.
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The most energetic events
ever measured by astronmers
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carry the name Gamma Ray Bursts
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because we observe them as bursts
or explosions
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most strongly measured as gamma ray light.
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Our star, like the one in our story
that became a magnetar,
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is detected as a gamma ray burst
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through the most energetic
portion of the explosion.
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Yet, even though gamma ray bursts
are the stongest events
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ever measured by astronomers,
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we cannot see them with our
naked eye.
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We depend, we rely on other methods
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in order to study this gamma ray light.
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We cannot see them with our
naked eye.
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We can only see an itty bitty tinny
portion
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of the electromagnetic spectrum
that call visible light.
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And beyond that, we rely on other methods.
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And as astronomers, we study a wider
range of light
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and we depend on other methods to do that.
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On the screen, it may look like this.
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You're seeing a plot,
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that is a light curve.
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It's a plot of intensity of light
over time.
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It is a gamma ray light curve.
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Sighted astronomers depend on this
kind of plot
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in order to interpret how this
light intensity changes over time.
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On the left, you will be seeing
the light intensity without a burst,
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and on the right, you will be seeing
the light intensity with the burst.
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Early during my career, I could also
see this kind of plot.
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But then, I lost my sight, I completely
lost my sight
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because of an extended illness,
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and with it, I lost the opportunity
to see this plot
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and the opportunity to do my physics.
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It was a very strong transition for me
in many ways.
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And professionally, it left me
without a way to do my science.
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I longed to access adn scrutinize
this energetic light
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and figure out the astrophysical cost.
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I wanted to experience the spacious
wonder, the excitement,
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the joy produced by the detection
of such a titanic celestial event.
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I thought long and hard about it.
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When I suddenly realized that all
a light curve is
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is a table of numbers converted
into a visual plot.
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So along with my collaborators,
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we worked really hard and we translated
the numbers into sound.
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I achieved access to the data,
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and today I'm able to do physics
at the level of the best astronomer
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using sound.
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And what people have been able to do,
mainly visually,
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for hundreds of years,
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now I do it using sound.
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(Applause)
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Listening to this gamma ray burst
that you're seeing on the --
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thank you --
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that you're seeing on the screen,
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brought something to the ear
beyond the obvious burst.
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Now I'm going to play the burst for you,
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it's not music, it's sound.
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(Sound of the plot)
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This is scientific data converted
into sound
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and it's mapped in pitch,
the process is called sonification.
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So listening to this brought something
to the ear
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besides the obvious burst.
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When I examine the very strong
low frequency regions,
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or base line,
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I'm zooming into the base line now --
or the baseline,
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we know that resonances that were
characteristic
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of electrically charged gasses
like the solar wind.
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And I want you to hear what I heard.
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You will hear it as a very fast
decrease in volume.
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And because you're sighted,
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I'm giving you a red line indicating
to you
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what intensity of light is being
converted into sound.
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(Sound)
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The (whistle) is frogs at home,
don't pay attention to that.
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(Laughter)
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(Sound)
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I think you heard it, right?
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So what we found is that the bursts
last long enough
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in order to support wave resonances,
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which are things caused by exchanges
of energy between particles
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that may have been excited
that depend on the volume.
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You may remember that I said
that the matter around the star
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is dragged around?
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It transmits power with frequency
and field distribution that
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are ?? by the dimensions
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And you may remember that
we were talking about