{"id":376464,"date":"2025-12-29T19:48:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-29T19:48:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/376464\/"},"modified":"2025-12-29T19:48:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-29T19:48:10","slug":"astronomers-stunned-by-massive-gamma-ray-burst-that-lasted-for-hours-instead-of-minutes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/376464\/","title":{"rendered":"Astronomers stunned by massive gamma-ray burst that lasted for hours instead of minutes"},"content":{"rendered":"

When gamma-ray bursts were first discovered by the military, their declassified origin left astrophysicists puzzled. They couldn\u2019t explain how such luminosity could exist. A newly detected burst now challenges what scientists thought they knew.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.\u201d Shakespeare\u2019s famous line from Hamlet might have crossed the minds of the astronomers behind a recent discovery, published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters and shared on arXiv.<\/p>\n

On July 2, 2025, several instruments detected a gamma-ray burst named GRB 250702B. NASA\u2019s Fermi satellite first spotted it in high-energy rays, triggering a series of observations in other wavelengths \u2014 particularly X-rays<\/a>. Combining data from multiple sources helps scientists better identify the origin of a GRB.<\/p>\n

Did you know?<\/p>\n

Back in the late 1960s, U.S. military satellites built to detect illegal nuclear explosions unexpectedly recorded bursts of cosmic gamma rays. Scientists overseeing the Vela satellites quickly realized these weren\u2019t human-made events, but cosmic ones. When the findings were later declassified, they astonished the scientific community.<\/p>\n

The energy released by these events seemed incomprehensible \u2014 until researchers proposed that GRBs were not spherical explosions but narrow jets. This revelation reduced the energy estimates dramatically, though they remained immense, finally making sense within known astrophysics.<\/p>\n

Scientists later classified GRBs into two groups: short bursts lasting less than two seconds and long ones lasting around ten. The short type likely comes from neutron<\/a> star collisions, producing kilonovae \u2014 explosions stronger than novae but weaker than supernovae.<\/p>\n

Long GRBs, meanwhile, are thought to result from massive, fast-rotating stars collapsing under gravity to form Kerr black holes. These black holes create accretion disks lasting several dozen seconds and produce jets powerful enough to rip through the star\u2019s surface, resulting in hypernovae. This is known as the \u201ccollapsar\u201d model \u2014 a combination of collapse and star.<\/p>\n

Infrared observations using ESO\u2019s Very Large Telescope later pinpointed a distant galaxy where GRB 250702B occurred. To the surprise of astronomers, this gamma-ray burst didn\u2019t last seconds but more than seven hours \u2014 the longest ever observed.<\/p>\n

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On October 5, NASA\u2019s James Webb Space Telescope provided astronomers with the sharpest image ever obtained of the host galaxy of the gamma-ray burst GRB 250702B. This galaxy is so distant that its light takes about 8 billion years to reach us. The burst appears within a field of stars in the very dense central plane of our Milky Way galaxy. In the enlarged image, lines indicate the burst\u2019s position near the upper edge of the galaxy\u2019s dark dust lane. This location rules out the possibility that the burst is linked to the supermassive black hole at the galaxy\u2019s core. The complete infrared image is about 2.1 arcminutes in diameter. \u00a9 NASA, ESA, CSA, H. Sears (Rutgers). Image processing: A. Pagan (STScI)<\/p>\n

A battery of telescopes<\/p>\n

A team led by Jonathan Carney, a PhD student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, kept observing the event for 18 days using some of the world\u2019s most powerful telescopes: the 4-meter NSF V\u00edctor M. Blanco Telescope and the twin 8.1-meter Gemini North and Gemini South telescopes of the international Gemini Observatory.<\/p>\n

According to a NOIRLab statement, Carney explained, \u201cThe ability to rapidly aim the Blanco and Gemini telescopes is crucial for studying transient events like gamma-ray bursts. Without that capability, our understanding of the dynamic night sky would be limited.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The image on the left shows the star field around the host galaxy of GRB 250702B. It combines observations from the Gemini North telescope in Hawaii and the Dark Energy Camera (DECam), installed on the 4-meter V\u00edctor M. Blanco telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. On the right: a close-up of the host galaxy, taken with the Gemini North telescope. This image, which covers 9.5 arcseconds, is the result of more than two hours of observations. The host galaxy is barely visible, however, due to the thick layer of dust surrounding it. The optical and near-infrared data from DECam were acquired on July 3, while the near-infrared observations from Gemini North were made on July 20. \u00a9 Gemini International Observatory\/CTIO\/NOIRLab\/DOE\/NSF\/AURA. Image processing: M. Zamani and D. de Martin (NSF NOIRLab)<\/p>\n

The collected data revealed a relativistic jet matching models of long GRBs \u2014 where a massive star collapses into a black hole and erupts in an enormous hypernova. Astronomers also detected vast amounts of dust around the jet\u2019s source and found that its host galaxy was far more massive than typical GRB hosts.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

A stunning artist\u2019s impression of a hypernova explosion with the formation of a black hole in the parent star. These computer-generated images illustrate the hypernova model, which is expected to account for the majority of long gamma-ray bursts. Before a very massive star explodes, a black hole forms in place of its core, subsequently engulfing the rest of the star. As an accretion disk also forms, with jets of particles emerging from the star\u2019s surface and propagating through the interstellar medium, creating a shock wave. Gamma-ray photon emissions then occur. \u00a9 Desy, Science Communication Lab<\/p>\n

A micro\u2013Tidal Disruption Event?<\/p>\n

Data indicate that the GRB originated in a dense, dusty environment \u2014 possibly a thick dust lane in the host galaxy aligned with the Earth\u2019s line of sight. Yet these observations don\u2019t fit established models, pushing scientists to consider new hypotheses.<\/p>\n

One theory suggests that a star \u2014 or perhaps a smaller object like a planet or brown dwarf \u2014 was torn apart by a compact object such as a stellar black hole or neutron star, forming a miniature tidal disruption event (TDE). Another possibility involves an intermediate-mass black hole \u2014 a type estimated to range from a hundred to a hundred thousand solar masses \u2014 ripping apart a nearby star.<\/p>\n

If that second scenario is true, it would mark humanity\u2019s first observation of a relativistic jet from an intermediate-mass black hole devouring a star. While more data are needed, current findings support this intriguing possibility.<\/p>\n

A TDE occurs when a star passes too close to a supermassive black hole, whose tidal forces flatten it into a so-called \u201cstellar pancake.\u201d The star may explode, with part of its material consumed by the black hole.<\/p>\n

The idea was first proposed in the 1970s by Jack Hills, Juhan Frank, and Martin Rees, based on earlier work by Lynden-Bell. In the early 1980s, Jean-Pierre Luminet and Brandon Carter at the Paris Observatory built precise models and simulations, publishing their pioneering studies in Nature (1982) and Astronomy & Astrophysics (1983). Their work showed how tidal forces could compress a star into a pancake-like form.<\/p>\n

Carney concluded, \u201cThis research opens a fascinating window into cosmic archaeology<\/a> \u2014 reconstructing the details of an event billions of light-years away. These discoveries remind us how much we still have to learn about the universe\u2019s most extreme phenomena and the importance of continuing to imagine what lies beyond.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Laurent Sacco<\/p>\n

Journalist<\/p>\n

Born in Vichy in 1969, I grew up during the Apollo era, inspired by space exploration, nuclear energy, and major scientific discoveries. Early on, I developed a passion for quantum physics, relativity, and epistemology, influenced by thinkers like Russell, Popper, and Teilhard de Chardin, as well as scientists such as Paul Davies and Haroun Tazieff.<\/p>\n

I studied particle physics at Blaise-Pascal University in Clermont-Ferrand, with a parallel interest in geosciences and paleontology, where I later worked on fossil reconstructions. Curious and multidisciplinary, I joined Futura to write about quantum theory, black holes, cosmology, and astrophysics, while continuing to explore topics like exobiology, volcanology, mathematics, and energy issues.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve interviewed renowned scientists such as Fran\u00e7oise Combes, Abhay Ashtekar, and Aur\u00e9lien Barrau, and completed advanced courses in astrophysics at the Paris and C\u00f4te d\u2019Azur Observatories. Since 2024, I\u2019ve served on the scientific committee of the Cosmos prize. I also remain deeply connected to the Russian and Ukrainian scientific traditions, which shaped my early academic learning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When gamma-ray bursts were first discovered by the military, their declassified origin left astrophysicists puzzled. They couldn\u2019t explain…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":376465,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[199,79],"class_list":{"0":"post-376464","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-physics","8":"tag-physics","9":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=376464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376464\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/376465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}