Powerful Explosions with Gamma-Ray Bursts are Fueled by Magnets

Some of the biggest explosions in the universe are associated with gamma-ray bursts. These bursts are detected by orbiting telescopes that are sensitive to this type of high-energy radiation. Now, scientists have taken a closer look at these bursts to better understand the explosions behind them.

Gamma-ray bursts, or GRBs, usually only last a few seconds. But in very rare cases, GRBs can continue for hours. One such ultra-long GRB was picked up by the Swift satellite and named GRB 111209A. Once the afterglow of this burst faded, it was studied using telescopes on the ground. Later, the researchers found a clear signature of a supernova.

"Since a long-duration gamma-ray burst is produced only once every 10,000 to 100,000 supernovae, the star that exploded must be somehow special," said Jochen Greiner, lead author of the new paper, in a news release. "Astronomers had assumed that these GRBs came from very massive stars-about 50 times the mass of the sun-and that they signaled the formation of a black hole. But now our new observations of the supernova SN 2011kl, found after the GRB 111209A, are changing this paradigm for ultra-long duration GRBs."

The findings reveal a bit more about GRBs and provide good evidence for a relation between GRBs, very bright supernovae and magnetars. This could be huge in terms of better understanding giant explosions in our universe.

The findings are published in the journal Nature.

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