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 curves of the optical afterglows observed did not behave as expected. Simon used radio data from MeerKAT, ALMA in Chile, ATCA in Australia and GMRT in India where radio afterglows were observed. We've added a new way to donate to 365 Days of Astronomy to support editing, hosting, and production costs. Just visit: https://www.patreon.com/365DaysOfAstronomy and donate as much as you can! Share the podcast with your friends and send the Patreon link to them too! Every bit helps! Thank you! ------------------------------------ Do go visit http://www.redbubble.com/people/CosmoQuestX/shop for cool Astronomy Cast and CosmoQuest t-shirts, coffee mugs and other awesomeness! http://cosmoquest.org/Donate This show is made possible through your donations. Thank you! (Haven't donated? It's not too late! Just click!) ------------------------------------ The 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast is produced by the Planetary Science Institute. http://www.psi.edu Visit us on the web at 365DaysOfAstronomy.org or email us at [email protected].

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“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.

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