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Published online 5 October 2005 |
Nature
| doi:10.1038/news021003-5
Corrected online: 18 October 2005
News
Elderly probe nails gamma-ray bursts
Collision of dead stars is the answer to 30-year mystery.
Fleeting bursts of gamma-rays from the depths of the Universe have puzzled astronomers for more than 30 years, but a slew of evidence has now confirmed that they originate from almighty collisions between the remnants of dead stars.
Surprisingly, the data that clinched this discovery have come from a burst spotted by an old NASA probe, HETE-2 (High Energy Transient Explorer), which has been in orbit since October 2000.
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