Loading video.
VIDEO: (90 second, 9.5MB video) On April 15 2020, a giant wave of X-rays and gamma rays lasting only a fraction of a second swept across the solar system, triggering. view more
Credit: Animation: NASA s Goddard Space Flight Center/Chris Smith (USRA/GESTAR).
Video: Therese van Wyk, University of Johannesburg.
Earth gets blasted by mild short gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) most days. But sometimes a giant flare like GRB 200415A arrives at our galaxy, sweeping along energy that dwarfs our sun. In fact, the most powerful explosions in the universe are gamma-ray bursts.
Now scientists have shown that GRB 200415A came from another possible source for short GRBs. It erupted from a very rare, powerful neutron star called a magnetar.