We know that regular supernovas pose no existential threat to life on Earth in the near-term. But there are other varieties ...
A mysterious gamma-ray burst has left scientists baffled, as it appears to be more powerful and unusual than anything detected before. Gamma-ray bursts are the most energetic explosions in the ...
But for a supernova to produce the strongest type of gamma-ray burst, the star must be some 30 to 40 times the size of the sun. This new powerful detection, so rare that we'll likely only observe ...
The spectacle is soon doomed to end in a supernova, tragically. Wolf-Rayets have lifespans only in the hundreds of thousands of years, opening the possibility that the gamma ray burst it would ...
Previous research also indicated that Earth looks down the axis of this system, known as Wolf-Rayet 104, raising concerns ...
"The gamma-ray burst traveled through intergalactic space at the speed of light for eleven billion years, during which time the Sun and the planets were born." — Timothy Ferris, in the film ...
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26 issue of the journal Nature. In the past four years, the team of astronomers working at the Smithsonian's Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory in Arizona has observed high-energy gamma-ray bursts ...
A new study has shed light on the orbital alignment of the well-known Wolf-Rayet 104 (WR 104) system, long considered a potential threat due to its speculated gamma-ray burst (GRB) risk. Observations ...
The supernova’s glow will endure for months ... This could lead to ecosystem collapse and a potential mass extinction event. Gamma-ray bursts, caused by neutron star mergers, are even more ...