Just wondering if there's any discussion about new gamma-ray observations and what they may say about high-energy physics. I've heard bits and pieces about how gamma-ray bursters can be used to probe the nature of quantum gravity in terms of a vacuum refractive index. This has to do with delay times in gamma-ray burst photons according to wavelength.

Secondly, I've heard rumors about some type of gamma-ray burst measurements that could contradict the dark-energy hypothesis (perhaps a distance-luminosity relation measurement).

Perhaps the new Fermi space observatory will help with some fresh observations.

Steve

P.S. And here's another unmanned yet non-planetary thread After posting this I see the mainly prelaunch GLAST thread from a few months back.

Our newspapers have a story about FERMI observing the "biggest explosion" ever in the Universe at 12 Billion light years away with the force of 9000 Black Holes...
Observation was made in September 2008
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/GLAST/main/index.html

They caught a good picture of the afterglow -- this might deserve its own thread.

Just had a thought -- maybe GRBs are generated when our Universe's 'brane touches another 'brane? I mean, membrane theory proposes the possibility that the Big Bang was generated when our 'brane had a full-on collision with another. Maybe GRBs are the result of small, glancing contacts?

Just a thought...

-the other Doug

I see they noticed a 16.5 second delay in the burst depending on the photon energy, so this could be more evidence of vacuum effects?

oDoug, this might be of interest. (It just popped up in a simple search; I'm not remotely qualified to assess it's credibility.)