CHAPEL HILL, N.C., Feb. 28 -- The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill issued the following news release:
Astronomers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have helped uncover new clues about the longest-lasting cosmic explosion ever observed, a gamma-ray burst that lasted nearly seven hours. The event, known as GRB 250702B, challenges decades of understanding about how and why these bursts occur.
Gamma-ray bursts are intense flashes of high-energy light produced by catastrophic cosmic events, usually lasting just a few seconds or minutes. But GRB 250702B broke all known records. After its initial detection by space-based observatories, researchers used some of the world's largest ground-based telescopes to capture ima...