Stars have been seen to conk in three ways . Small ones turn intowhite dwarfsafter having exhausted their fuel and swelling up into cherry giants . Bigger ones burst forth in supernovae , work black holes or neutron stars , or even leaving nothing behind . And then star and stellar remnant in binary systems can merge and go boom . Astronomers have finally see a 4th direction , which has long been suspect to exist : unbounded stellar object crossing path in a collision .
A long - continuance gamma - beam burst , GRB 191019A , which lasted for 80 seconds , was tracked to the regions around a supermassive black hole in a coltsfoot 3 billion light - years away . There , whizz are packed tightly together and they end up interact . In this instance , in a demolition derby - style hit .
“ These raw results show that whizz can meet their demise in some of the densest regions of the existence where they can be ram to collide , ” lead writer Andrew Levan , an stargazer with Radboud University in The Netherlands , said in astatement . “ This is exciting for understand how stars exit and for answering other questions , such as what unexpected germ might make gravitative wave that we could detect on Earth . ”
The source of long - duration gamma - ray bursts ( any burst longer than two seconds but less than 10,000 ) is unremarkably a very massive star goingsupernova , but the realm where GRB 191019A come from is ancient . There should n’t be any stars capable of those explosions . For this ground , researchers look for a dynamic explanation for the potent flash of visible radiation .
Observations conducted with the Gemini South Telescope intimate the hit of two compact objects . The environment at the center of the galaxy is so packed with star that their gravitational interaction can finally advertise object to get over paths in a fatal way of life .
“ Our follow - up notice tell us that rather than being a massive star collapsing , the burst was most in all probability because of the uniting of two compendious aim , ” said Levan . “ By pinpoint its location to the center field of a previously identify ancient beetleweed , we had the first tantalizing evidence of a new pathway for star to foregather their dying . ”
These events might be more common than previously thought , but thecenters of galaxiesare busy , stale environment , so they might have gone unnoticed so far . The team hopes to find more of these issue and even obtain reflexion with gravitative undulation as well .
The study is published in the journalNature Astronomy .
