Earth just got zapped. On Sunday a gamma-ray burst (GRB), the most powerful class of explosions in the universe, caused a wave of gamma rays and X-rays to sweep over Earth.

On Feb. 1, 2007, four gamma ray satellites measured a short but intense outburst of energetic gamma rays originating in the direction of the Andromeda galaxy 2.5 million light years from Earth.

When you think of a radiation detector, you’re probably thinking of a Geiger tube and its high voltage circuitry. That isn’t the only way to measure gamma radiation, though, and [Alan] … ...

“However, after analyzing the data from CSES as well as ESA’s Integral space telescope, we changed our opinion. Now, we think it is possible that a gamma-ray burst can produce an effect in the ...

A Self-Guided Tour of the Electromagnetic Spectrum Gamma rays It's not easy to imagine how high the frequency of a high-energy gamma ray is. During the time it takes for its wave to go through one ...

There are two types of gamma-ray bursts: short and long. Classic short-term GRBs last less than two seconds, and they were previously thought to only occur from the merging of two ultra-dense ...

The gamma ray burst as seen by the European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton observatory. Image: ESA/XMM - Newton/M. Rigoselli (INAF) On October 9, 2022, a gamma ray burst brighter than any before seen ...

The researchers believe that the centers of such old galaxies are cloaked in vast amounts of gas and dust, which could obscure the gamma-ray burst. That would mean the 2019 event was an exception.

If the same type of gamma-ray emission can be observed in these galaxies, dark matter would be strongly implicated, Abazajian said. However, studies of such dwarf galaxies have so far turned up ...

Gamma-ray bursts are already the most energetic events we know of in the universe. Now, astronomers have detected the most powerful one ever. The competition isn’t even close, either – it's ...

A gamma ray packs at least 10,000 times more energy than a visible light ray. Unlike the Incredible Hulk, gamma rays are not green — lying as they do beyond the visible spectrum, gamma rays have ...