A weird gamma ray burst doesn't fit our understanding of the cosmos

Astronomers person spotted a unusual blast of gamma radiation from abstraction that defies categorisation, and it whitethorn mean a spread successful our knowing of however achromatic holes form

Space 7 December 2022

By Leah Crane

Gamma ray bursts blast radiation into space

NASA/Swift/Cruz deWilde

A unusual blast of radiation from abstraction whitethorn upend however we categorise specified flashes, called gamma ray bursts (GRBs). It seems to travel from a achromatic spread forming amazingly dilatory aft 2 stars merge, indicating a spread successful our knowing of achromatic holes.

There are 2 main types of gamma ray bursts: abbreviated GRBs, which past little than 2 seconds and mostly hap erstwhile two neutron stars smash together and illness into a achromatic hole, and agelong GRBs, which tin past minutes and are associated with supernovas. But GRB 211211A, spotted successful 2021, doesn’t acceptable successful that dichotomy.

Four abstracted probe groups observed the GRB, and they each saw the aforesaid thing: it decidedly came from 2 stars colliding, but it lasted astir 1 minute. “Two seconds is however agelong it takes successful a merger for a achromatic spread to signifier and devour up everything successful its environment, truthful it’s precise unusual that this lasted a full minute,” says Benjamin Gompertz astatine the University of Birmingham successful the UK.

One of the teams suggested the merger whitethorn person near down a huge, rapidly rotating neutron prima called a magnetar, which could beryllium powering the gamma ray emanation aft the archetypal collision. The different 3 concluded that it astir apt near down a achromatic hole, but it’s not wide however that could make specified a agelong GRB.

“In those fewer moments betwixt the merger of the neutron stars and the enactment of the achromatic hole, determination is simply a large question people close now,” says Eleonora Troja astatine Tor Vergata University of Rome. “This is telling america that determination is simply a missing portion of the puzzle that we didn’t adjacent cognize was missing.”

The missing portion astir apt has to bash with the behaviour of the black hole itself, says Troja. “The achromatic spread is similar the butler successful a transgression movie – you cognize however you ticker a transgression movie oregon TV amusement and the archetypal fishy is ever the butler? In astronomy, it’s the achromatic hole, due to the fact that we cognize that it has the quality to make things that we bash not understand,” says Troja.

While GRB 211211A is by acold the biggest outlier from the GRB categorisations, it isn’t the lone one. Other “oddball” GRBs haven’t been observed truthful thoroughly, though, truthful studying this 1 volition assistance america recognize the others. “I’ve been calling this the Rosetta Stone of extended-duration GRBs due to the fact that it’s letting america link the physics to the observations successful overmuch worse datasets,” says Gompertz. We whitethorn request a 3rd class of GRBs for these weird events, the researchers say.

Journal references: Nature, DOI:10.1038/s41586-022-05327-3, DOI:10.1038/s41586-022-05403-8, DOI:10.1038/s41586-022-05404-7, DOI:10.1038/s41586-022-05390-w; Nature Astronomy, DOI:10.1038/s41550-022-01819-4

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More connected these topics:

• achromatic holes
• gamma rays