A new window on the phenomenon opened April 25, when a burst of gamma rays occurred at about the same time and near the most unusual supernova ever observed. In Thursday's issue of the journal Nature, researchers at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena said the supernova may have generated the gamma ray burst by ejecting a stream of material at close to the speed of light. It tells us the engine that makes this supernova is also capable of making the gamma ray burst. Since U.S. spy satellites first detected gamma ray bursts, scientists have tried to explain them as products of colliding neutron stars that coalesce into a black hole or as the result of a massive black hole swallowing a neutron star. A neutron star is the collapsed core left after a star explodes.
Neutron stars release energy by spewing light, radio waves and particles.
The gamma ray findings are forcing scientists to re-examine their ideas about supernovas, which are important because they seed the galaxies with the iron, oxygen and carbon essential to life. It was the first one ever observed in connection with a supernova. Gamma ray bursts have higher energy than all other forms of radiation, but that energy never affects Earth's surface because it gets absorbed by the atmosphere.