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Astrophysics

A burst of new ideas

Nature volume 444, pages 1010–1011 (2006)Cite this article

Gigantic cosmological γ-ray bursts have fallen into a dichotomy of long and short bursts, each with a very different origin. The discovery of an oddball burst calls for a rethink of that classification.

The events known as γ-ray bursts (GRBs) are the most violent and luminous explosions observed in the Universe. In the early 1990s, it became clear that they come in two distinct flavours: longer-duration bursts, typically longer than 2 seconds, with a spectrum of emitted radiation that peaks at lower ('softer') energy; and shorter-duration bursts with a more energetic, 'harder' spectrum1. Observations of burst afterglows in the past decade — particularly in the past year2,3,4 — have seemed to show that this division is a clean one, and is firmly rooted in the progenitor of each type of burst. According to this picture, long bursts are associated with a young stellar population, marking the deaths of massive stars whose lifetime is short5. Short bursts, on the other hand, are associated with an old stellar population, and are probably powered by mergers of compact objects such as neutron stars or black holes6.

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Figure 1
Figure 2: A classification scheme for γ-ray bursts.

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  1. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Nevada, 4505 Maryland Parkway, Las Vegas, 89154-4002, Nevada, USA

    Bing Zhang

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Zhang, B. A burst of new ideas. Nature 444, 1010–1011 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/4441010a

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