Short gamma-ray bursts are the most powerful explosions in the cosmos: in an instant, they emit as much energy as the Sun will over its entire lifetime. The source was thought to be known: a black hole with a scorching disk, born from the collision of two neutron stars. But an old idea suggests: a ergostar — a remnant spinning so furiously that it twists spacetime around itself like a whirlpool. This vortex can unleash a blinding beam.

A new study revives the concept: if a neutron star is made not of neutrons but of 'strange matter' — a quark 'soup' — the ergostar becomes stable. Matter doesn't collapse into a point like in a black hole; instead, rotation holds it up, like a vortex maintaining its shape through motion. The stored rotational energy reaches a tenth of a solar mass — more than enough reservoir for a gamma-ray burst.

Previously, ergostars were dismissed as unstable, but strange matter changes the picture. They might hide among pulsars — rapidly rotating neutron stars discovered in 1967 by Jocelyn Bell Burnell. Future gravitational waves detectors might catch their 'sound,' distinguishing them from ordinary remnants.