{"id":280820,"date":"2026-02-08T16:29:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-08T16:29:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/280820\/"},"modified":"2026-02-08T16:29:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-08T16:29:11","slug":"astronomers-detected-a-strong-signal-from-space-lasting-seven-hours-now-they-may-have-worked-out-what-it-was","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/280820\/","title":{"rendered":"Astronomers detected a strong signal from space lasting seven hours. Now they may have worked out what it was"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gamma-ray bursts<\/a> (GRBs) are intense sources of high-energy radiation that scientists detect on Earth in the form of gamma rays.<\/p>\n

They were first detected in the 1960s by US military satellites looking for nuclear detonations on Earth, which saw bright bursts of gamma rays coming from the sky.<\/p>\n

They didn\u2019t know what they were, but that was how the term was coined. It wasn\u2019t until much later that astronomers began to understand the physical processes that might cause them.<\/p>\n

\"AnCredit: ESA\/Hubble, M. Kornmesser<\/p>\n

In 2025, astronomers detected a blast from space that lasted seven hours, known as GRB 250702B<\/a>. Now they\u2019re uncovering the strange processes behind the exceptional outburst.<\/p>\n

Eliza Neights is a researcher at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, where she studies the physics behind gamma-ray bursts.<\/p>\n

We spoke to her to find out more about this incredible signal and what could be causing it.<\/p>\n

\"Eliza
\nHow do we detect GRBs?<\/p>\n

Primarily we use widefield, high-energy monitoring, typically with space telescopes that see a very large part of the sky at a time.<\/p>\n

They scan everything at once and pick up anything that looks like a bright pulse compared to the background noise.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019m what\u2019s called a \u2018burst advocate\u2019 for the Gamma-ray Burst Monitor on NASA\u2019s Fermi Space Telescope.<\/p>\n

That means I take six or so shifts a month and any time the telescope sees something that looks like a bright flash of gamma rays, it automatically sends the data to whoever\u2019s on duty.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s up to us to determine the nature of the event and alert the scientific community.<\/p>\n

What did you discover?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, we detected a gamma-ray burst named GRB 250702B.<\/p>\n

I was on duty at the time the instrument detected its very unusual pattern: three gamma-ray bursts that appeared to be coming from the same place in the sky.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Gamma-rayGamma-ray burst GRB 250702B, as seen by ESO’s Very Large Telescope. Credit: ESO\/A. Levan, A. Martin-Carrillo et al.
\nWhat was so special about GRB 250702B?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the longest-lasting GRB ever recorded. By combining data from five high-energy telescopes,
we figured out that it lasted around seven hours, or 25,000 seconds. That\u2019s an extreme duration.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For context, average GRBs last no more than several minutes, and the last record holder was around 15,000 seconds. GRB 250702B\u2019s duration cannot be explained by the known origins of GRBs \u2013 it needs a novel physical explanation. \u00a0<\/p>\n

What usually causes GRBs?<\/p>\n

There are two processes that are known to lead to GRBs.<\/p>\n

Most originate from the collapse of a rapidly rotating, massive star. These stars collapse into compact objects, probably black holes, which form powerful jets.<\/p>\n

We detect these jets as gamma-ray bursts when they happen to point towards us.<\/p>\n

Some other GRBs occur when two neutron stars \u2013 very dense stellar remnants \u2013 are orbiting each other and then merge.<\/p>\n

Once again, a compact object forms that produces jets which we can detect.<\/p>\n

\"Artist'sArtist’s impression of a gamma-ray burst. Credit: NASA\/Swift\/Cruz deWilde
\nWhat alternative processes do you think might have caused GRB 250702B?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s most naturally explained by a \u2018helium merger\u2019. This is where you have a black hole with a mass about that of a star and it\u2019s in orbit with a helium star.<\/p>\n

These stars have had their outer layers of hydrogen stripped away, leaving a dense core of helium, and they\u2019re thought to go through phases of expansion.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When they expand, the orbiting black hole will end up inside the stellar envelope and consume the star rapidly.<\/p>\n

Suddenly, you have all of this angular momentum being transferred into the black hole, which can give rise to a jet which lasts a long time.<\/p>\n

Why is it that so few of these long bursts have been seen? Are they particularly rare?<\/p>\n

They may be less common than other GRB progenitors, but also GRBs with extreme durations are harder to spot for telescopes that are looking for short, bright signals.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re also dimmer, which limits the distance we can detect them over.\u00a0<\/p>\n

What\u2019s your next avenue of research?\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019m involved with the Compton Spectrometer and Imager (COSI) telescope, a gamma-ray survey telescope due to be launched in 2027.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m preparing it for the detection and analysis of GRBs and I\u2019d like to make sure it\u2019s equipped to detect GRBs with extreme durations.<\/p>\n

Hopefully, this will help us to observe more of them and fully understand the physical processes behind them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This interview appeared in the February 2026 issue of BBC Sky at Night Magazine<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are intense sources of high-energy radiation that scientists detect on Earth in the form of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":280821,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[85,46,141,145],"class_list":["post-280820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=280820"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280820\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/280821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}