Long Gamma-Ray Burst
Complete animation sequence.
Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab
Astronomers think a long GRB (gamma-ray burst) arises from a massive, rapidly rotating star when its core runs out of fuel and collapses, forming a black hole in the star’s center. In this artist's concept, the camera flies into a vast cloud of dust and gas the star has been steadily ejecting over thousands of years. Near the star, a particle jet driven by matter falling toward the black hole erupts from the surface at nearly the speed of light. A more distant view reveals two jets moving in opposite directions, extending into and interacting with the cloud material, and producing the GRB and its afterglow. To detect a GRB, one of these jets must point toward Earth.
Fly-in shot through a nebula to a massive star.
Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab
Close-up of a massive star showing the emergence of particle jet.
Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab
Distant shot revealing both particle jets interacting with circumstellar dust and gas.
Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab
Credits
Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab
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Animator
- Adriana Manrique Gutierrez (KBR Wyle Services, LLC)
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Producer
- Scott Wiessinger (KBR Wyle Services, LLC)
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Science writer
- Francis Reddy (University of Maryland College Park)
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Technical support
- Aaron E. Lepsch (ADNET Systems, Inc.)
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Scientist
- Eric Burns (Louisiana State University)
Missions
This page is related to the following missions:Series
This page can be found in the following series:Related
- ID: 14634
Produced Video
Used as a Source In
- ID: 14738
![Watch to learn more about gamma-ray bursts, the most powerful explosions in the cosmos. They first came to the attention of astronomers in the 1970s when new satellites detected this surprising phenomenon. Over decades, scientists have found that these blasts could be detected somewhere in the sky almost every day, and that they were both extremely distant — the closest known is over 100 million light-years away — and enormously powerful. Gamma-ray bursts are now linked to the explosive deaths of massive stars and to mergers of compact objects, like neutron stars and black holes, but many puzzles remain. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight CenterMusic: “Time Science,” Steve Fawcett [ASCAP] and Katherine F Martin [BMI], Universal Production Music Watch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel.Complete transcript available.](/vis/a010000/a014700/a014738/YTframe_ASD_GRB.jpg)
Produced Video - ID: 14317
Release date
This page was originally published on Tuesday, September 19, 2023.
This page was last updated on Thursday, January 9, 2025 at 3:53 PM EST.