‘Extraordinarily uncommon’ explosion far past our Galaxy has astronomers baffled. This is what it might be

A large gamma-ray burst (GRB) has been detected that has astronomers scratching their heads.

Gamma ray bursts are among the strongest explosions within the Universe and are considered produced by the catastrophic destruction of stars.

But this new explosion, noticed just a few billion lightyears outdoors our Galaxy and named GRB 250702B, was not like any seen earlier than, bringing this idea into query.

“This event is unlike any other seen in 50 years of GRB observations,” says Antonio Martin-Carrillo of University College Dublin and co-lead creator of the research.

“Gamma-ray bursts are catastrophic occasions; they’re anticipated to go off simply as soon as as a result of the supply that produced them doesn’t survive the dramatic explosion.

“This event baffled us, not only because it showed repeated powerful activity, but also because it seemed to be periodic, which has never been seen before.”

To add to the thriller, whereas most gamma-ray bursts final just some milliseconds or minutes, this one lasted a day.

“This is 100 to 1,000 times longer than most gamma-ray bursts,” explains the research’s co-author Andrew Levan.

Various telescopes had been educated on the place the gamma-ray burst was thought to originate, with ESO’s Very Large Telescope inserting it outdoors our Galaxy.

The proven fact that it’s so far-off signifies that the explosion should have been extremely highly effective.

“We’re still not sure what produced this or if we can ever really find out,” says Martin-Carrillo, “but with this research, we’ve made a huge step towards understanding this extremely unusual object.”

One doable trigger for the gamma-ray burst might be a large star collapsing into itself, releasing huge quantities of power within the course of.

“If this is a massive star, it is a collapse unlike anything we have ever witnessed before,” says Levan, referring to the truth that, if it was a large star, the gamma-ray burst would doubtless have lasted just some seconds.

The different trigger might be a star being ripped aside by a black gap.

That, the group say, may produce a day-long GRB, however to elucidate different points of the explosion would imply an uncommon star being destroyed by an much more uncommon black gap.