{"id":624303,"date":"2026-09-14T11:14:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-14T11:14:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/624303\/"},"modified":"2026-09-14T11:14:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-14T11:14:11","slug":"astronomers-detected-a-strong-signal-from-space-lasting-seven-hours-now-they-may-have-worked-out-what-it-was-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/624303\/","title":{"rendered":"Astronomers detected a strong signal from space lasting seven hours. Now they may have worked out what it was"},"content":{"rendered":"

Get the key facts from this story with our quick, 1-minute read<\/p>\n

Key discovery: Astronomers identified a substantial blast in deep space that lasted seven hours.<\/p>\n

Signal duration: Named GRB 250702B, the signal is a gamma ray burst<\/a> that has smashed previous records by lasting roughly 25,000 seconds.<\/p>\n

A piece of history: Gamma-ray bursts were first discovered unexpectedly by US military satellites during the 1960s at the height of the Cold War.<\/p>\n

Detection methods: Space scientists typically spot these powerful high-energy radiation events using space telescopes that monitor broad areas of the sky.<\/p>\n

What causes them: Most traditional gamma-ray bursts usually result from either massive collapsing stars or merging neutron stars.<\/p>\n

A different class: Researchers believe the record-breaking duration of GRB 250702B points towards a rare helium merger event.<\/p>\n

Helium merger: This unusual scenario involves a stellar-mass black hole consuming a stripped helium star from the inside.<\/p>\n

Observational challenges: Extreme bursts are exceptionally difficult for conventional telescopes to spot because they are typically dimmer and harder to identify than short signals.<\/p>\n

Future telescopes: Preparations are underway for the 2027 launch of the COSI telescope to help scientists detect and analyse more long-duration bursts.<\/p>\n

\"AnCredit: ESA\/Hubble, M. Kornmesser<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Get the key facts from this story with our quick, 1-minute read Key discovery: Astronomers identified a substantial…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":624304,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[61,60,82],"class_list":["post-624303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=624303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624303\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/624304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=624303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=624303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=624303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}