Cosmoview Episode 71: Never-Before-Seen Way to Annihilate a Star
Channel: NOIRLabAstro
Date: 2023-09-26

This artist's impression illustrates how astronomers studying a powerful gamma-ray burst (GRB) with the Gemini South telescope, operated by NSF’s NOIRLab, may have detected a never-before-seen way to destroy a star. Unlike most GRBs, which are caused by exploding massive stars or the chance mergers of neutron stars, astronomers have concluded that this GRB came instead from the collision of stars or stellar remnants in the jam-packed environment surrounding a supermassive black hole at the core of an ancient galaxy.

More information and download options: http://noirlab.edu/public/videos/noirlab2319a/

Credit:
International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA, M. Garlick, M. Zamani, K. O Chul, ESO/L. Calçada, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/CI Lab, N. Bartmann

Music: Stellardrone - Airglow