A Short History of the First 50 Years: from the GRB Prompt Emission and Afterglow Discoveries to the Multimessenger Era

TL;DR

This paper reviews the history and major discoveries in gamma-ray burst (GRB) astronomy over the past 50 years, highlighting how multiwavelength and multimessenger observations have advanced understanding of these cosmic explosions.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of the key milestones, satellite contributions, and open questions in GRB research, emphasizing the transition to the multimessenger era.

Findings

GRBs are ultra-relativistic jets in distant galaxies.

The discovery of afterglows solved the origin mystery.

Multiple satellites have contributed to GRB understanding.

Abstract

More than fifty years have been elapsed from the first discovery of a Gamma Ray Burst (GRB) with the American Vela satellites, and more than twenty-five years from the discovery with the BeppoSAX satellite of the first X-ray afterglow of a GRB. Thanks to the afterglow discovery and to the possibility given to the optical and radio astronomers to discover the GRB optical counterparts, the long-time mystery about the origin of these events was solved. Now we know that GRBs are huge explosions, mainly ultra relativistic jets, in galaxies at cosmological distances. Starting from the first GRB detection with the Vela satellites, I will review the story of these discoveries, those obtained with BeppoSAX, the contribution to GRBs by other satellites and ground experiments, among them Venera, Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, HETE2, Swift, Fermi, AGILE, MAGIC, H.E.S.S., which were, and some of them are still, very important for the study of GRB properties. Then I will review the main results obtained thus far and the still open problems and prospects of the GRB astronomy.