NASA Explains Gamma-ray Bursts

Watch to learn more about gamma-ray bursts, the most powerful explosions in the cosmos. They first came to the attention of astronomers in the 1970s when new satellites detected this surprising phenomenon. Over decades, scientists have found that these blasts could be detected somewhere in the sky almost every day, and that they were both extremely distant — the closest known erupted over 100 million light-years away — and enormously powerful. Gamma-ray bursts are now linked to the explosive deaths of massive stars and to mergers of compact objects, like neutron stars and black holes, but many puzzles remain.

Music credit: “Time Science,” Steve Fawcett [ASCAP] and Katherine F Martin [BMI], Universal Production Music

Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Producer: Scott Wiessinger (eMITS) Science writers: Francis Reddy (University of Maryland College Park)
Jeanette Kazmierczak (University of Maryland College Park) Scientist: Brad Cenko (NASA/GSFC)
Narrator: Scott Wiessinger (eMITS)

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