Friday, July 11, 2014

Bizarre Blast Nearby Mimics Universe's Most Ancient Stars

ESA's XMM-Newton observatory has helped to uncover how the Universe's first stars ended their lives in giant explosions. Astronomers studied the gamma-ray burst GRB130925A – a flash of very energetic radiation streaming from a star in a distant galaxy – using space- and ground-based observatories. They found the culprit producing the burst to be a massive star, known as a blue supergiant. These huge stars are quite rare in the relatively nearby Universe where GRB130925A is located, but are thought to have been very common in the early Universe, with almost all of the very first stars having evolved into them over the course of their short lives.



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