Interplanetary Network Localization of GRB 991208 and the Discovery of its Afterglow.
The extremely energetic ( approximately 10-4 ergs cm-2) gamma-ray burst (GRB) of 1999 December 8 was triangulated to an approximately 14 arcmin2 error box approximately 1.8 days after its arrival at Earth with the third interplanetary network (IPN), which consists of the Ulysses, Near-Earth Asteroid Rendezvous, and Wind spacecraft. Radio observations with the Very Large Array approximately 2.7 days after the burst revealed a bright fading counterpart whose position is consistent with that of an optical transient source with a redshift of 0.707. We present the time history, peak flux, fluence, and refined 1.3 arcmin2 error box of this event and discuss its energetics. This is the first time that a counterpart has been found for a GRB localized only by the IPN.
Hurley
K
Cline
T
Mazets
E
Aptekar
R
Golenetskii
S
Frederiks
D
Frail
D
Kulkarni
S
Trombka
J
McClanahan
T
Starr
R
Goldsten
J