When the Speed of Light Stops Being the Limit ⚡ экспресс
The record-bright gamma-ray burst GRB 221009A delivered a surprise: at energies above 30 TeV, where cosmic light usually gets stuck, the LHAASO detector caught extra photons. Maybe under extreme conditions, physics warps — photons slow down to avoid obstacles. Could the universe's most powerful flash be lighting up new physics?
In October 2022, the LHAASO observatory measured the spectrum (energy distribution) of gamma-ray burst GRB 221009A—the brightest on record. Its light traveled for two billion years and was so intense that it disturbed the upper layers of Earth's atmosphere. The radiation contained an excess of photons (light particles) with energies above 30 teraelectronvolts—as if each carried the punch of a tennis ball.
Normally, such particles, racing through space, smash into background radiation—the faint light of the Big Bang—and, producing pairs of matter and antimatter, vanish. But at extreme energies, the speed limit cracks: photons speed up slightly and slip through obstacles. This contradicts the Standard Model of physics and points to a violation of Lorentz symmetry.
The anomaly may be a consequence of quantum gravity—a theory that unites Einstein's gravity with the microworld. Perhaps at ultra-small distances, spacetime ceases to be smooth and becomes grainy, like foam, allowing light to move slightly faster.
🎯 Gamma-ray burst GRB 221009A was nicknamed BOAT (Brightest Of All Time). Its light was so powerful that it disturbed Earth's ionosphere, even though the source was nearly two billion light-years away.
🎬 In Isaac Asimov's novel 'The Gods Themselves', physicists encounter an anomaly that violates the law of energy conservation—much like the violation of Lorentz symmetry challenges the constancy of the speed of light.