Chandra Release - March 24, 2003

Visual Description: GRB 020813

 A 21-hour Chandra observation of the afterglow of the gamma-ray burst GRB 020813 revealed an overabundance of elements characteristically ejected by the supernova explosion of a massive star. The afterglow is thought to be produced by the interaction of a jet of high-energy particles with an expanding supernova shell. Overall, the colors are primarily dark red, dusky brown, yellow, orange and blue.  At the center of the image, there is a tiny circular shape, resembling a doughnut, with a lighter color in the middle and darker rings around it. This is the accretion disk from the black hole.  There are yellow-orange jets emanating from the center on both sides towards 11 o’clock and 4 o’clock.  The jets meet with a large dark red circular shape that represents the supernova shell.  At the location where the jets meet the shell, it is colored dark blue.  Below the illustration is the Chandra spectrum (a plot that shows X-ray brightness over different wavelengths) with colorful narrow lines.   Bumps due to silicon and sulfur ions were identified in the X-ray spectrum of GRB 020813 (so named because it was discovered by the High-Energy Transient Explorer satellite on August 13, 2002).