When you buy through links in our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn commission. A jet of particles ejected from a dying star at speeds close to the speed of light. When such a jet is directed at us, we see a gamma-ray burst. | Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center’s Conceptual Imaging… Read More »
While examining a nearby supernova with NASA’s Fermi gamma-ray space telescope, scientists uncovered a larger mystery in an effort to discover how these stellar explosions fire charged particles called cosmic rays. The team found that the supernova, called SN 2023ixf, was completely devoid of gamma-ray emissions, which should be present when cosmic ray particles are… Read More »
When distant stars explode, they emit flashes of energy called gamma-ray bursts that are bright enough for telescopes on Earth to detect them. Studying these pulses, which can also come from the merger of some exotic astronomical objects such as black holes and neutron stars, can help astronomers like me understand the history of the… Read More »
Scientists have taken a device originally designed to study massive celestial bodies in the universe and repurposed it to study Earth on a much smaller scale. With this device, they managed to examine the heart of the atom. The team wanted to understand the quantum-scale changes occurring in unstable atoms and realized they had a… Read More »
If solar scientists are not yet eager to observe the sun as it reaches solar maximum in 2024, a newly discovered gamma ray puzzle will intensify that desire. Examining 14 years of data from NASA’s Fermi space telescope, a research team discovered that during the last solar maximum in 2013 and 2014, the sun’s polar… Read More »
An artist’s interpretation of a gamma ray burst.DESY, Science Communication Laboratory Astronomers investigating the wallpaper of our universe came across a mysterious signal. Something unknown appears to be emitting high-energy cosmic rays and gamma rays. This pattern in the sky could help solve one of astrophysics’ greatest mysteries. NEW ORLEANS – Astronomers using the NASA… Read More »