The Cosmic Savannah - Ep. 81: One Last Burst: Gamma Rays & Afterglows

About this episode

The episode discusses gamma ray bursts and their optical afterglows with insights from Dr. Simon de Wet's research.

Hosted by Dr. Jacinta Delhaize, Dr. Tshiamiso Makwela, Dr. Daniel Cunnama & François Campher In this episode, Jacinta chats with Dr. Simon de Wet about the discoveries he made during his Master's and PhD theses regarding mysterious gamma ray bursts (GRBs). Meanwhile, the team takes a trip back to the Pendulum Room for a final farewell to the old studio. Gamma Ray Bursts are some of the brightest bursts of high energy light in space, usually originating from the collapse of a massive star or two neutron stars colliding. Both of these processes create a black hole, which ejects very bright light into space. GRBs happen frequently, but far away from us! Simon has begun his post-doc in Copenhagen where he will continue working on transient astronomy. Transient astronomy involves studying objects that vary in their nature. Simon talks us through the accidental discovery of GRBs, how we discovered that GRBs are from very distant galaxies. He also mentions that GRBs originate from collapsing stars as well as the formation of a black hole. Simon's PhD work focused on trying to capture the optical afterglow of GRBs using the MeerLICHT telescope in Sutherland. He found that the light…

People in this episode

Host: Dr. Jacinta Delhaize

Guest: Dr. Simon de Wet

Topics covered

• gamma ray bursts
• transient astronomy
• black holes
• optical afterglows
• stellar collapse
• neutron star collisions

Keywords

• gamma rays
• afterglows
• transient astronomy
• black holes
• stellar collapse
• neutron stars
• optical afterglow
• MeerLICHT
• radio data

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: MeerLICHT, MeerKAT, ALMA, ATCA, GMRT

Places: Copenhagen, Sutherland, Chile, Australia, India

More episodes of The 365 Days of Astronomy

• Guide To Space - First Ever Picture of a Baby Planet! · April 30, 2026 · 8 min
• Awesome Astronomy - Artemis Chat · April 29, 2026 · 42 min
• Cheap Astronomy - Dear CA #134: Testing Asumptions · April 28, 2026 · 15 min
• Astronomy Cast Ep. 791: Chang'e Sample Return · April 27, 2026 · 34 min
• Travelers in the Night Eps. 875 & 876: Newly Discovered Crater & Neighborhood Traffic · April 26, 2026 · 6 min
• EVSN - To Artemis, With Love · April 24, 2026 · 29 min