A bright flash of gamma rays observed March 28 by the Swift satellite may have been the death rattle of a star falling into a massive black hole and being ripped apart, according to a team of ...

Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are among the most powerful explosions in the universe, second only to the Big Bang. The majority of these bursts are observed to flash and fade within a few seconds to minutes ...

Across the sky, brief and violent flashes of energy are arriving from far beyond the Milky Way, each one lasting less than ...

Alfredo has a PhD in Astrophysics and a Master's in Quantum Fields and Fundamental Forces from Imperial College London.View full profile Alfredo has a PhD in Astrophysics and a Master's in Quantum ...

Astronomers spend careers watching stars collapse and explode, but an eruption spotted in July pushed beyond anything seen before. The event, called GRB 250702B, released high-energy radiation for ...

The longest gamma-ray burst ever recorded did not roar for seconds or even minutes, but for a staggering seven hours, forcing ...

Osaka, Japan – Lightning is a phenomenon that has fascinated humanity since time immemorial, providing a stark example of the power and unpredictability of the natural world. Although the study of ...

Down here at the bottom of our ocean of air, it’s easy to get complacent about the hazards our universe presents. We feel safe from the dangers of the vacuum of space, where radiation sizzles and ...

The unexpectedly powerful light from the brightest space explosion ever seen may mean that space is more transparent than we thought. Last year, astronomers witnessed a flash of gamma rays that was ...

This artist's impression shows a kilonova produced by two colliding neutron stars. While studying the aftermath of a long gamma-ray burst (GRB), two independent teams of astronomers using a host of ...

Magnetars are bizarre objects — massive, spinning neutron stars with magnetic fields among the most powerful known, capable of shooting off brief bursts of radio waves so bright they’re visible across ...