An unusual bright blast of light detected by multiple telescopes in December 2021 was the result of a rare cosmic explosion that created a wealth of heavy elements such as gold and platinum.

Astronomers have spotted a bright gamma-ray burst that upends previous theories of how these energetic cosmic eruptions occur.

Last December, astronomers caught sight of an extremely bright, extremely close gamma ray burst that lasted for a little under a minute — close as far as gamma ray bursts, anyways: about a billion light-years away. Ordinarily, it would be interesting, but nothing groundbreaking, something to be filed away with the tens of thousands of other long gamma ray bursts that have been observed over the past half-century. But then, something didn’t happen: the supernova required to create such a lengthy explosion was nowhere to be found.

Earlier this month, on October 9th, one of the most intense gamma ray bursts hit the Earth. It was spotted by a number of space telescopes including Nasa’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, and China’s High Energy Burst Searcher (HEBS) and Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope (Insight-HXMT), according to an article by the South China Morning Post (SCMP) published on Friday. The telescopes were scanning the skies for cosmic explosions and now their scientists are weighing in on the incredible discovery.

New observations are challenging a hypothesis about what produces these energetic bursts of radio waves.

A peculiar repeating fast radio burst seems to be coming from a dynamic environment in an otherwise uninteresting region, leaving researchers scratching their heads as to the burst’s origin.

Mysterious fast radio bursts release as much energy as the Sun pours out in a year - and newly published research has deepened the mystery around them.

We have detected a strange new signal from across the chasm of time and space. A repeating fast radio burst source detected last year was recorded spitting out a whopping 1,863 bursts over 82 hours, amid a total of 91 hours of observation.