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Gamma-ray burst - Wikipedia

Gamma-ray burst

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In gamma-ray astronomy, gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are extremely energetic events occurring in distant galaxies which represent the brightest and most powerful class of explosion in the Universe.1234 These extreme electromagnetic emissions are second only to the Big Bang as the most energetic and luminous phenomena known.56 Gamma-ray bursts can last from a few milliseconds to several hours.78 After the initial flash of gamma rays, a longer-lived afterglow is emitted, usually in the longer wavelengths of X-ray, ultraviolet, optical, infrared, microwave or radio frequencies.9

The intense radiation of most observed GRBs is thought to be released during a supernova or superluminous supernova as a high-mass star implodes to form a neutron star or a black hole. Short-duration (sGRB) events are a subclass of GRB signals that are now known to originate from the cataclysmic merger of binary neutron stars.10

The sources of most GRB are billions of light years away from Earth, implying that the explosions are both extremely energetic (a typical burst releases as much energy in a few seconds as the Sun will in its entire 10-billion-year lifetime)11 and extremely rare (a few per galaxy per million years).12 All GRBs in recorded history have originated from outside the Milky Way galaxy, although a related class of phenomena, soft gamma repeaters, are associated with magnetars within our galaxy. A gamma-ray burst in the Milky Way pointed directly at Earth would likely sterilize the planet or cause a mass extinction.13 The Late Ordovician mass extinction has been hypothesised by some researchers to have occurred as a result of such a gamma-ray burst.141516

GRB signals were first detected in 1967 by the Vela satellites, which were designed to detect covert nuclear weapons tests; after an “exhaustive” period of analysis,17 this was published as academic research in 1973.18 Following their discovery, hundreds of theoretical models were proposed to explain these bursts, such as collisions between comets and neutron stars.19 Little information was available to verify these models until the 1997 detection of the first X-ray and optical afterglows and direct measurement of their redshifts using optical spectroscopy, and thus their distances and energy outputs. These discoveries—and subsequent studies of the galaxies and supernovae associated with the bursts—clarified the distance and luminosity of GRBs, definitively placing them in distant galaxies.

Printed 2026-06-28.

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Footnotes

  1. Reddy, Francis (2023-03-28). “NASA Missions Study What May Be a 1-In-10,000-Year Gamma-ray Burst - NASA”. nasa.gov. Retrieved 2023-09-29. ↩

  2. Gehrels, Neil; Mészáros, Péter (2012-08-24). “Gamma-Ray Bursts”. Science. 337 (6097): 932–936. arXiv:1208.6522. Bibcode:2012Sci…337..932G. doi:10.1126/science.1216793. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 22923573. ↩

  3. Misra, Kuntal; Ghosh, Ankur; Resmi, L. (2023). “The Detection of Very High Energy Photons in Gamma Ray Bursts” (PDF). Physics News. 53. Tata Institute of Fundamental Research: 42–45. ↩

  4. NASA Universe Web Team (2023-06-09). “Gamma-Ray Bursts: Black Hole Birth Announcements”. science.nasa.gov. Retrieved 2024-05-18. ↩

  5. “Gamma Rays”. NASA. Archived from the original on 2012-05-02. ↩

  6. Zhang, Bing (2018). The Physics of Gamma-Ray Bursts. Cambridge University Press. pp. xv, 2. ISBN 978-1-107-02761-9. ↩

  7. Atkinson, Nancy (2013-04-16). “New Kind of Gamma Ray Burst is Ultra Long-Lasting”. Universe Today. Retrieved 2022-01-03. ↩

  8. Kouveliotou 1994 ↩

  9. Vedrenne & Atteia 2009 ↩

  10. Abbott, B. P.; et al. (LIGO Scientific Collaboration & Virgo Collaboration) (16 October 2017). “GW170817: Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Neutron Star Inspiral”. Physical Review Letters. 119 (16) 161101. arXiv:1710.05832. Bibcode:2017PhRvL.119p1101A. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.119.161101. PMID 29099225. S2CID 217163611. ↩

  11. Arizona State University (26 July 2017). “Massive star’s dying blast caught by rapid-response telescopes”. PhysOrg. Retrieved 27 July 2017. ↩

  12. Podsiadlowski 2004 ↩

  13. Melott 2004 ↩

  14. Melott, A.L. & Thomas, B.C. (2009). “Late Ordovician geographic patterns of extinction compared with simulations of astrophysical ionizing radiation damage”. Paleobiology. 35 (3): 311–320. arXiv:0809.0899. Bibcode:2009Pbio…35..311M. doi:10.1666/0094-8373-35.3.311. S2CID 11942132. ↩

  15. Rodríguez-López, Lien; Cardenas, Rolando; González-Rodríguez, Lisdelys; Guimarais, Mayrene; Horvath, Jorge (24 January 2021). “Influence of a galactic gamma ray burst on ocean plankton”. Astronomical Notes. 342 (1–2): 45–48. arXiv:2011.08433. Bibcode:2021AN…342…45R. doi:10.1002/asna.202113878. S2CID 226975864. Retrieved 21 October 2022. ↩

  16. Thomas, Brian C.; Jackman, Charles H.; Melott, Adrian L.; Laird, Claude M.; Stolarski, Richard S.; Gehrels, Neil; Cannizzo, John K.; Hogan, Daniel P. (28 February 2005). “Terrestrial Ozone Depletion due to a Milky Way Gamma-Ray Burst”. The Astrophysical Journal. 622 (2): L153–L156. arXiv:astro-ph/0411284. Bibcode:2005ApJ…622L.153T. doi:10.1086/429799. hdl:2060/20050179464. S2CID 11199820. Retrieved 22 October 2022. ↩

  17. Bonnell, J. T.; Klebesadel, R. W. (1996). “A brief history of the discovery of cosmic gamma-ray bursts”. AIP Conference Proceedings. 384: 979. Bibcode:1996AIPC..384..977B. doi:10.1063/1.51630. ↩

  18. Klebesadel R.W.; Strong I.B.; Olson R.A. (1973). “Observations of Gamma-Ray Bursts of Cosmic Origin”. Astrophysical Journal Letters. 182: L85. Bibcode:1973ApJ…182L..85K. doi:10.1086/181225. ↩

  19. Hurley 2003 ↩

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