Astronomers have spotted a bright gamma-ray burst that upends previous theories of how these energetic cosmic eruptions occur.
For decades, astronomers thought that GRBs came in two flavors, long and short — that is, lasting longer than two seconds or winking out more quickly. Each type has been linked to different cosmic events. But about a year ago, two NASA space telescopes caught a short GRB in long GRB’s clothing: It lasted a long time but originated from a short GRB source.
“We had this black-and-white vision of the universe,” says astrophysicist Eleonora Troja of the Tor Vergata University of Rome. “This is the red flag that tells us, nope, it’s not. Surprise!”
This burst, called GRB 211211A, is the first that unambiguously breaks the binary, Troja and others report December 7 in five papers in Nature and Nature Astronomy.
To read more, click here.