In 2005, a satellite pinpointed the location of a short burst of celestial gamma rays. The world’s largest ground-based telescopes quickly swung into action, measuring the optical afterglow. Astronomers called this now-famous gamma ray burst GRB 050509b. It was the first time a gamma ray burst was localized – in real time, by a satellite – allowing ground-based observers to follow it.

Gamma-ray bursts are titanic flashes of radiation . . .

Astronomers see them happening about once a day throughout the universe. About 20% of all gamma-ray bursts are short – lasting less than a couple of seconds.

So they produce the energy of a million suns released in a span of time just two seconds long. Astronomer Joshua Bloom of the University of California, Berkeley, studies gamma ray bursts. Most are thought to be created in supernova explosions, but Bloom found a short burst that isn’t from a supernova. Instead it was found near an elliptical galaxy 2.7 billion light-years from Earth.

Joshua Bloom: What’s exciting about this observation is that we have evidence that nature’s biggest bang, or at least one of nature’s biggest bangs, gamma-ray bursts, comes from some of nature’s most exotic objects. We have evidence that these short bursts come from when two neutron stars collide, or perhaps even more exotically, when a black hole and a neutron star collide.

Neutron stars and black holes are exceedingly dense. When they’re paired, they can orbit around each other until, after billions of years, they spiral into each other, creating one of nature’s biggest bangs.

Thanks today to Research Corporation, a foundation for the advancement of science.

Our thanks to:
Joshua Bloom
UC Berkeley