All articles tagged with #gamma ray burst
A 300 TeV photon from a gamma-ray burst 2 billion light-years away defied known physics by surviving the journey. Researchers propose it used axion-like particles and Lorentz invariance violations to bypass cosmic microwave background radiation, potentially opening a new window for quantum gravity research.
Astronomers detected GRB 250702B, a record-breaking gamma-ray burst lasting about 25,000 seconds (roughly seven hours). While most GRBs come from collapsing stars or merging neutron stars, this unusually long event may be caused by a rare helium-merger: a stellar-mass black hole consuming a stripped helium star. Such extreme bursts are hard to spot with conventional telescopes, but the upcoming COSI telescope, planned to launch in 2027, aims to find and study more long-duration bursts.
A high-energy photon from GRB 221009A, nicknamed the BOAT, arrived on Earth despite expectations it would be absorbed by the cosmic microwave background. Researchers propose it may have traveled as an axion-like particle and later converted back, potentially aided by a high-energy Lorentz-invariance violation, effectively giving photons a “fast lane” through space. The arrival timing aligns with the theory, and if confirmed, could turn space into a natural laboratory for quantum gravity research.
Discovered by the Vela satellites in 1967 while monitoring for nuclear tests, the flash proved to be the first gamma-ray burst, a mysterious deep-space event whose origin puzzled scientists for decades. Subsequent missions—BATSE on the Compton Observatory, the Interplanetary Network, and BeppoSAX—established GRBs as extragalactic and extraordinarily energetic, sometimes releasing more energy in seconds than the Sun does in its entire lifetime. By linking long-duration bursts to the deaths of massive stars and black-hole formation, researchers unveiled the GRB connection to supernovas, while later observations of high-energy afterglows have driven new questions about their underlying physics.
Astronomers linking a long gamma-ray burst to the merger of two compact objects near a galaxy’s central supermassive black hole reveal a new, fourth pathway for how stars can die in the universe’s densest regions, with future work aiming to detect accompanying gravitational waves using observatories like the Vera C. Rubin Observatory.
Scientists used the Submillimeter Array on Maunakea to observe a gamma-ray burst within minutes of its discovery, marking the fastest-ever millimeter-wavelength observations of such an event after a Swift alert. The rapid follow-up enabled near real-time imaging of the burst and its fading afterglow, offering new insights into the jet physics of these colossal explosions and paving the way to even quicker responses in the future.
China's Einstein Probe detected a mysterious X-ray transient EP240305a that produced two closely spaced X-ray flares about 200 seconds apart, with no corresponding gamma-ray emission. Multiwavelength follow-up showed the X-rays fading in days and radio fading over weeks, leaving scientists classifying the event as a gamma-ray-dark GRB-like transient or an extragalactic fast X-ray transient; the true origin remains uncertain, possibly due to jet orientation or gamma-ray obscuration.
A December 27, 2004 giant flare from magnetar SGR 1806-20, though tens of thousands of light-years away, saturated satellites and briefly disturbed Earth’s ionosphere. In the first 0.2 seconds the flare released energy comparable to the Sun’s output over about 250,000 years. Follow-up observations showed a pulsating tail tied to the magnetar’s rotation, with distance estimates later revised, complicating exact energy figures. The event also illustrated how a Galactic magnetar flare can resemble a short gamma-ray burst if viewed from afar, but it posed no danger to Earth and remains a key, well-documented case for magnetar physics and energy release mechanisms.
Astronomers recorded GRB 250702B, the longest gamma-ray burst on record, lasting about seven hours. By combining data from five high-energy telescopes, they suggest a helium-star–black-hole merger produced an unusually long jet, a departure from standard GRB progenitors. The finding highlights that GRB engines can be more diverse, and upcoming missions like the COSI telescope aim to detect more such extreme bursts to unravel the underlying physics.
Using the James Webb Space Telescope and a global network of observatories, scientists detected GRB 250702B, a gamma-ray burst that lasted about seven hours—the longest on record and far longer than typical bursts. The event, occurring in a dusty galaxy about 8 billion light-years away, could arise from an extreme gamma-ray burst, a tidal disruption event, or a black-hole–star merger, but a definitive explanation remains elusive. The multi-wavelength observations highlight extreme physics in stellar death and black-hole interactions and offer a rare window into such phenomena.
Astronomers spotted the fading radio afterglow of a gamma-ray burst that Earth never saw because its jet was not pointed toward us. Using the Australian SKA Pathfinder (ASKAP) radio telescope, they traced ASKAP J005512-255834 to a distant, star-forming galaxy and identified it as the most convincing orphan-afterglow candidate yet, offering a template for finding similar high-energy explosions when the initial blast is missed.
An international team reports a rare link between a binary black hole merger (GW event S241125n, about 4.2 billion light-years away) and a short gamma-ray burst with an X-ray afterglow, suggesting such mergers can emit detectable light under certain conditions and signaling a new era for combining gravitational waves with electromagnetic observations.
GRB 250702B is the longest gamma-ray burst on record, lasting seven hours with three separate bursts in a day. Researchers propose it may have been produced when a Sun-like star was tidally disrupted by an intermediate-mass black hole, creating a relativistic jet; the star could have been shredded in multiple passes, and the event's location away from the galaxy's core supports the IMBH scenario, though competing models remain and evidence is contested.
Astronomers using Chandra, Fermi, Swift and Hubble have pinpointed a neutron-star merger inside a tiny, faint galaxy embedded in a 600,000-light-year gas stream, likely created by a past galaxy collision. The event, GRB 230906A from 2023-09-06, helps explain gamma-ray bursts without obvious host galaxies and how heavy elements like gold and platinum can form and spread into galaxy outskirts.
Astronomers detected GRB 250702B, a gamma-ray burst lasting about 25,000 seconds (roughly seven hours)—the longest on record—observed by multiple space-based telescopes since mid-2025; its sustained, evolving profile challenges standard GRB classifications and may point to a helium-star merger with a stellar-mass black hole, while no redshift or host galaxy has been identified yet. The finding highlights potential detection biases against long, lower-brightness bursts and has spurred plans to revise criteria for future missions like NASA/ESA’s COSI and to re-examine archival data for overlooked events.