Record Gamma-Ray Burst: 7 Hours of Invisible Light ⚡ экспресс
Astronomers have found the longest cosmic explosion — a gamma-ray flash lasting nearly 7 hours. Usually, such bursts last seconds. This record-breaker seems to be caused by a black hole falling into a star that then explodes from the inside — like a soap bubble popping under pressure from its center. What else do the interiors of giant stars conceal?
A cosmic searchlight blazed for almost 7 hours—usually these flashes die out in seconds. Astronomers recorded the record-breaking gamma-ray burst GRB 250702B: its beam, made of the most energetic radiation, flickered and carried colossal energy. The source was a superheated jet, accelerated to nearly the speed of light—as if the searchlight were powered by a titanic accelerator. But old models couldn't explain such a long runtime. The solution came from a 'helium merger' scenario: a black hole plunged into a star almost entirely composed of helium and depleted of hydrogen. Once inside, the hole spun up the star and started devouring it from within, blasting out energy—the searchlight switched on at full blast. The star perished not in an ordinary stellar explosion (supernova), but with monstrous gamma radiation, simultaneously creating gravitational waves—ripples in space itself. The discovery links ultra-long bursts with the mightiest explosions of massive stars and shows that helium stars can swell before death. An unexpected twist: a black hole the size of a city powered a searchlight that outshone an entire galaxy.
🎯 The burst’s energy was so enormous that for those 7 hours, it outshone all the stars in its galaxy combined.