Discovery of the X-Ray Afterglow of the Gamma-Ray Burst of February 28 1997

Preprint

6 June 1997

preprint
Published by arXiv in arXiv

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.astro-ph/9706065

Abstract

Here we report the discovery in the X-ray band of the first afterglow of a gamma-ray burst. It was detected and quickly positioned by the Beppo-SAX satellite on 1997 February 28 (GRB970228). The X-ray afterglow source was detected with the X-ray telescopes aboard the same satellite about eight hours after the burst and faded away in a few days with a power law decay function. The energetic content of the X-ray afterglow results to be a significant fraction of gamma-ray burst energetics. The Beppo-SAX detection and fast imaging of GRB970228 started a multiwavelength campaign that lead to the identification of a fading optical source in a position consistent with the X-ray source.

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All Related Versions

Version 1, 1997-06-06, ArXiv
Published version: Nature, 387 (6635), 783.

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