• Press Release Astronomers spot mysterious gamma-ray explosion, unlike any detected before 9 September 2025 Astronomers have detected an explosion of gamma rays that repeated several times over the course of a day, an event unlike anything ever witnessed before. • The source of the powerful radiation was discovered to be outside our galaxy, its location pinpointed by the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT). • Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are the most powerful explosions in the Universe, normally caused by the catastrophic destruction of stars. • But no known scenario can completely explain this new GRB, whose true nature remains a mystery. • This GRB is “unlike any other seen in 50-years of GRB observations,” according to Antonio Martin-Carrillo, astronomer at University College Dublin, Ireland, and co-lead author of a study on this signal recently published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. • GRBs are the most energetic explosions in the Universe.
Article Summaries:
- Astronomers have detected an unprecedented gamma‑ray burst (GRB 250702B) that repeated several times over a single day, a behavior never seen before in the 50‑year history of GRB observations. The event, first flagged by NASA’s Fermi telescope and later seen by the Einstein Probe, lasted roughly 24 hours-100‑to‑1,000 times longer than typical bursts. Using ESO’s Very Large Telescope, researchers pinpointed the source to a galaxy outside the Milky Way, a finding later confirmed by the Hubble Space Telescope. The burst’s origin remains unclear, with possibilities ranging from an unusual massive‑star collapse to a black‑hole tidal disruption, but no existing model fully explains the phenomenon.
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