Gamma Ray Revolution: The Longest Burst and Cosmic Mysteries Unveiled

SpaceTime with Stuart Gary Gary - Series 28 Episode 147
In this episode of SpaceTime, we delve into remarkable discoveries that significantly enhance our understanding of the cosmos.
Longest Gamma Ray Burst Ever Detected
Astronomers have made headlines with the discovery of the longest gamma ray burst ever recorded, GRB 250702B, which lasted over seven hours. This unprecedented event is reshaping our understanding of stellar explosions and their aftermath. Initial observations indicate that this extraordinary burst may have originated from a black hole consuming a star, prompting new theories about the mechanisms behind these powerful cosmic phenomena. We explore the implications of this finding and how it challenges existing models of gamma ray bursts.
Elemental Bounty in Supernova Remnant
For the first time, scientists have detected chlorine and potassium in the remnants of the supernova Cassiopeia A, utilizing the advanced capabilities of the CRISM spacecraft. This discovery sheds light on the elemental processes that occur during stellar explosions and their connection to the formation of elements crucial for life on Earth. We discuss the significance of these findings and their impact on our understanding of stellar nucleosynthesis.
International Space Station Fully Occupied
In a historic first, the International Space Station has reached full capacity, with all eight of its docking ports in use. We discuss the implications of this milestone, including the logistics of managing multiple spacecraft and the ongoing missions currently underway aboard the ISS.
www.spacetimewithstuartgary.com
✍️ Episode References
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Astrophysical Journal Letters
Nature Astronomy
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/spacetime-your-guide-to-space-astronomy--2458531/support.
(00:00:00) This is space Time Series 28, Episode 147 full broadcast on 17 December 2025
(00:00:47) Astronomers have detected the longest gamma ray burst ever detected
(00:11:11) Astronomers have detected chlorine and potassium in a supernova remnant
(00:18:27) International Space Station is fully occupied with all eight docking ports now in use
(00:20:05) New study claims flavonoids may help improve insulin resistance
(00:24:58) You're a multiple award winner. You've won in creative writing and controversy
(00:26:05) Space Time is available every Monday, Wednesday and Friday through bitesz. com

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is Spacetime Series twenty eight, Episode one hundred and
forty seven, for broadcast on the seventeenth December twenty twenty five.
Coming up on space Time, discovery of the longest gamma
ray burst ever detected, an elemental bounty discovered in a
supernova remnant, and for the first time, the International Space
Station is full up with no parking spaces available. All

(00:24):
that and more coming up on space Time.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Welcome to space Time with Stuart Gary.

Speaker 1 (00:47):
Astronomers have discovered the longest gamma ray burst ever detected,
lasting over seven hours, and in the process changing sciences
understanding about the death of the most massive stars. Have
been trying to work out exactly what was responsible for
this extraordinary cosmic explosion ever since it was first detected
on July second. The initial observations have been reported in

(01:10):
the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society and in
the Astrophysical Journal Letters. Gamma ray bursts are incredibly rare
put Simply, they're the most powerful explosions since the Big
Bang of Creation thirteen point eight billion years ago, and
they come in two broad types. There are short period
gamma ray bursts, which lasts just a few seconds and

(01:33):
are thought to be caused by the merger of two
neutron stars forming a black hole, or by the merger
of a neutron star into a black hole. Then there
are long period gamma ray bursts. They can last for
more than ten seconds and are thought to be caused
by the explosive Supernerva deaths of the most massive stars,
turning them into black holes. The specific gamma ray burst,

(01:54):
named GiB twenty five zero seven zero two B, continued
not for hours but day, and is now thought to
have herald a new kind of stellar explosion. Astronomers still
think the best explanation for this outburst is a black
hole consuming a star, but they disagree on exactly how
this would have happened. Possibilities include a black hole weighing

(02:16):
a few thousand times the mass of our Sun, shredding
a star that passed too close, or alternatively, a much
smaller black hole merging within consuming its stellar companion. One
of the sturdies. Authors Eliza Knights, from George Washington University
in NASA's gotad's based Flight Center in green Belt, Maryland,
says the initial wave of gamma rays lasted at least

(02:36):
seven hours and that's nearly twice the duration of the
longest gamma ray bursts previously seen. It was unlike anything
observed in the last half century, and it had some
really unusual properties. On average, a gamma ray burst is
detected somewhere in the universe at least once a day.
They can appear anywhere in the sky without warning. Usually

(02:58):
they're very distant events, with even the closest known example
erupting more than one hundred million lie years away, But
the record setting duration of the July burst places it
in a class by itself. Of the roughly fifteen thousand
gamma ray bursts observed since the phenomenon was first recognized
back in nineteen seventy three, none have been as long,

(03:18):
and only around half a dozen have even come close.
Because opportunities to study such events are so rare, and
because many reveal new ways to create gamma ray bursts,
astronomers are especially excited about the July event. All gamma
ray bursts are thought to be generated by matter falling
into a black hole, but not all the matter falling
into a black hole is immediately consumed. Most of it

(03:42):
first forms an accretion disc around the black hole. There
it's crushed and torn apart at the subatomic level, most
will pass beyond the point of no return called the
event horizon, after which it falls forever into the black
hole's singularity. But black holes are messy eaters, and some
of the material is caught up in magnetic fields, which

(04:02):
channels the matter into tight jets of particles that's stream
out across the universe at almost the speed of light,
in the process, creating gamma rays as they go. The
thing is, none of this is thought to be able
to readily create jets able to keep firing for days
on end, and that's why twenty five zero seven zero
two B poses such unique puzzle. The gamma ray burst

(04:25):
monitor on NASA's Fermi Gamma Ray Space Telescope discovered the
burst and triggered multiple times over the course of three hours.
It was also detected by the Burst Alert Telescope on
NASAs Swift Space Telescope, the Russian Kronos instrument on NASA's
Wind mission, the gamma ray in neutron spectrometer on the
Psyche spacecraft that's the NASA mission currently on its way

(04:45):
to the asteroid sixteen Psyche, and by Japan's monitor of
all sky X ray image instrument aboard the International Space Station.
The thing is, this burst went on for so long
that no Hegenergy monitor in space was equipped to four
observe it, and so it took the combined power of
instruments on mudible spacecraft better understand the event. The white

(05:07):
field X ray telescope on China's Einstein Probe also detected
the burst in X rays and showed that a signal
was already present the previous day. The first precise location
came early July third, when Swift's X ray telescope imaged
the burst of the constellation Scutum that's near the crowded,
dusty plane of our Milky Way galaxy. Now, given this

(05:28):
location and the day earlier X ray detection, astronomers initially
wondered whether this might be a different type of outburst
from somewhere within our own Milky Way galaxy. But images
from some of the largest telescopes on Earth, including those
that the Keken Gemini Observatories in Hawaii and the European
Southern Observatories VLT or Very Large Telescope in Cele indicated

(05:49):
that there was a galaxy at those coordinates, and so
astronomers turned to NASA's Hubble space telescope for a clearer view.
Andrew Levin from Redbound University in the Netherlands says it
definitely is another galaxy, proving that it was a distant
and powerful explosion, but he admits it was a very
strange looking one. He says the Hubble data is a

(06:10):
bit ambiguous. It shows either two galaxies merging or one
galaxy with a dark band of dust splitting the core
into two pieces. And more recent images captured by NASA's
web space telescope strongly support Levin's interpretation. The web observersions
clearly show the gamma ray burst shining through this dustly

(06:30):
and spilling across the galaxy. In late August, astronomers using
web and the very large telescope to determine the galaxy's
distance and other properties concluded that the burst was remarkably powerful,
erupting with the equivalent energy omitted by one thousand suns,
shining for ten billion years. Amazingly, this galaxy so far

(06:50):
away that light from this explosion began racing outward some
eight billion years ago, long before our Sun and solar
system had even begun to form a comprehensive s study
of the X ray light following the main burst used
to observations from SWIFT, NASA's Chandra X ray observatory, and
the agency's new Start Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array mission. The

(07:10):
SWIFT and new Start data revealed rapid flares occurring up
to two days after the burst, discovery that continued accretion
of matter about the black hole powered and outflow that
produced these flares, but the process continued for far longer
than possible in standard gamma ray burst models. The late
X ray flares showed that the blast power source simply

(07:31):
refused to shut off, which means the black hole kept
feeding for at least a few days after the initial eruption.
Affermi and SWIFT data indicate a typical, if unusually long
gamma ray burst, but spectroscopic WEB observations didn't find a
supernova explosion, which typically follows a stellar collapse gamma ray burst,
although it may have been obscured by its dust and distance.

(07:53):
The Einstein probe saw X rays a day before the
burst on new Start tracked the X ray flares up
to two days after, but neither was typical for gamma
ray bursts, In addition, a detailed study shows that the
host galaxy appears to be very different from the typically
small galaxies that host most stellar collapse gamma ray bursts.
It turns out this galaxy surprisingly large, with more than

(08:16):
twice the mass of our own Milky Way. Now, in
both the two scenarios we've discussed here, the black hole
should have consumed the star in about a day. The
first involves an intermediate mass black hole, one with a
few thousand solar masses and an event horizon a few
times larger than the Earth. As a star wanders too close,
it becomes stretched spaghettified if you will, along its orbit

(08:39):
by gravitational forces from the black hole, and is then
rapidly consumed. This describes what astronomers call a tital disruption event,
but one caused by a rarely observed middleweight black hole
with a mass much greater than those born in stellar
collapses and much smaller than the behemoth super massive black
holes found at the centers of galaxies. Right now, the

(09:00):
gamma ray team of favoring a different scenario, because if
this burst is like the others, the black hole's mass
must be more similar to that of our Sun. Their
model envisions a black hole with about three solar masses
with an event horizon just eighteen kilometers, a cross orbiting
and then merging with a companion star. The star would
be of similar mass to the black hole, but much

(09:21):
smaller than the Sun. That's because its hydrogen atmospheres already
be mostly stripped away, leaving just a dense helium core,
forming an object, which astronomers call a helium star. Now,
in both cases, matter from the star first flows towards
the black hole, then collects into a vast decretion disc,
from which material makes its final plunge into the black hole.

(09:43):
At some point in this process, the system begins to
shine bright in X rays. Then, as the black hole
rapidly consumes the star's matter, gamma ray jets are blasted outwards.
But notably, the helium star merger model makes a unique prediction.
Once the black hole is turned immersed within the main
body of the star, feasting on it from the inside,

(10:03):
if you will, the energy it releases explodes the star
and powers a super and ova. Unfortunately, this explosion occurs
behind enormous clouds of dust and gas, meaning even the
power of the web Space telescope wouldn't be enough to
see the expected super and ova. While the smirking gun
evidence to explain exactly what happened in July, the second

(10:24):
we'll have to wait for future events. GB twenty five
H seven zero two B has already provided new insights
into what is now the longest gamma ray burst ever seen.
This is space time. Still, the Calm astronomers have for
the first time detected the elements colorin and potassium in
a supernova remnant, and the International Space Station has been

(10:46):
forced to put out the fully occupied sign for the
first time, with all eight of its docking ports now
in use. All that and more, still, the Calm on
space time astronomers have for the first time ever detected

(11:13):
the element's chlorine and potassium in a supernova remnant. The discovery,
reported in the journal Nature Astronomy, was made using CHRISM,
the X ray Imaging and Spectroscopic Mission spacecraft. CHRISM observed
the elements in the supernova remnant Cassiopea A, which are
the remains of a star that exploded some three hundred
and forty years ago. This expanding cloud of debris is

(11:36):
located some eleven thousand light years away. In the northern
constellation Cassiopeia and is now some ten light years across.
Other than hydrogen and helium, which were produced in the
Big Bang thirteen point eight billion years ago, all the
elements in our universe are manufactured in stars, either during
their lives or when they die. This includes the iron

(11:57):
in your blood and the calcium in your bone. Heat
and pressure fuse lighter elements like carbon and oxygen into
progressively heavier ones like neon an ion, creating onion like
layers of materials in side stars, but nuclear reactions also
take place during explosive events like supernovae, which occur when
a star runs out of fuel and collapses and explodes.

(12:20):
Elemental abundances and different locations in a stellar wreckage can
tell astronomers a lot about the progenitor star and its explosion,
even after hundreds or thousands of years. Some elements like oxygen, carbon,
and neon are more common than others and are therefore
easier to detect and trace back to a particular part
of a star's life, but other elements like chlorine potassium

(12:42):
are far more elusive. Since scientists have less data about them,
it's more difficult to model where in a star they formed,
but these rarer elements still play important roles in life
on Earth. Potassium, for example, helps cells and muscles function,
and so astronomers are interested in facing its cosmic origins.
This studies lead author Tashiki Sato from Menji University in Turkyo,

(13:06):
says the discovery helps illustrate how the deaths of stars
and life on Earth are fundamentally intertwined. As Carl Sagan
once said, we are all star dust. Now, thanks to chrism,
astronomers have a better idea of when and house stars
might make crucial get hard to define elements. The roughly
circular Kassia pa supernova remnant as a super dense neutron

(13:29):
star at center the remains of the progenitor star's original core.
Astronomers using NASA's Chander X ray observatory had previously identified
signatures for iron, silicon, sulfur, and other elements within Kassia PAA.
In the hunt for other elements, the authors use chrism
to look at the remnant in December twenty twenty three,
and they were able to pick out the signatures for

(13:50):
chlorine potassium, determining that the remnant contains much higher ratios
than expected. They also detected a possible indication of phosphorus,
which had previously already been discovered in Kassiopeia A through
infrared observations. The studies authors think stellar activity could have
disrupted the layers of nuclear fusion inside the star before
it exploded. That kind of upheaval may have led to persistent,

(14:14):
large scale churning of material inside the star that created
the sorts of conditions where chlorine potassium formed in abundance.
The authors also combined their Chrism observations with those from
the Chandra Earth orbiting X ray telescope, showing that the
elements were concentrated in the southeastern and northern parts of
the remnant. This lopsided distribution may mean the star itself

(14:36):
had undergone asymmetries before it exploded, something that the Chandra
data had previously suggested. The authors had always suspected that
a key part might be asymmetry, and now they have
more evidence to support that hypothesis. But there's still a
lot they don't understand about how stars explode and how
they distribute all their elements across the cosmos. Being able

(14:58):
to make measurements with good statistical p decision of these
rarer elements allows astronomers to develop a better understanding of
the nuclear fusion process going on inside stars before and
during their soupinova explosions, and spacecraft like CHRISM helps to
accelerate that understanding. This report from mess ATV.

Speaker 3 (15:17):
CHRISM is our newest X ray telescope in space. It's
a Jackson NASA collaborative mission with ease of participation and
will revolutionize X ray observations of the universe. It does
this with a one of a kind sensor that captures
data with thirty six super cooled pixels. Wow, yes, you

(15:39):
heard that right. This groundbreaking detector isn't measured in megapixels.
It's a six by six grid of thirty six pixels,
but they're unlike any others. Although this detector, called Resolve
can create low resolution X ray images, that is not
what makes it unique. Each pixel and Resolve is a microclorimeter,

(16:04):
so it can measure tiny amounts of heat. A six
stage system cools it to fifty millikelvins, or a fraction
of a degree above absolute zero. This extreme low temperature
allows Resolve to measure how much a pixel warms when
absorbs a single X ray and therefore measure the energy

(16:24):
of that one particle of light. It's basically a precise
way of measuring the X ray's color. As a result,
CHRISM can create the most detailed X ray spectrum ever
for distant objects. This spectrum can give a great deal
of useful information like temperature, what elements are present and

(16:44):
in what quantities, and how fast an object is moving
toward or away from us, even if we can only
see it as a dot in the sky to distant
to resolve details. This would be a revolutionary achievement for
a detector with a single pixel, but Resolve has thirty six.
This allows CHRISM to observe extended objects that aren't point

(17:06):
source dots and create spectrum maps of their different regions
that can reveal speed and temperature differences in extremely hot gases.
Using that information, scientists can determine how nebulae and galaxy
clusters have evolved and interacted over time. The Resolve detector
was invented and built at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

(17:30):
The detector's success in CHRISM will enable Goddard to further
the design and follow up with X ray microcalorimeters with
hundreds or even thousands of pixels. So while it may
not sound as impressive as four k or fifty megapixels,
the resolve detector on CHRISM will be revolutionizing our understanding

(17:50):
of the large scale, high energy universe, and that's pretty
amazing for a mere three dozen.

Speaker 1 (17:57):
Pixels this space time still to come, the International Space
Station puts out the full up sign with no spare
parking spaces available, and later in the science report, a
new steady claims flavornoids may help improve insulin resistance. All
that and more still to come on space time. For

(18:31):
the first time in its history, the International Space Station
is fully occupied, with all eight of its docking ports
now in use. The House full sign went up following
the redocking of the north Rock Brumman Signet's cargo ship
under the Earth facing port of the Unity module. The
orbiting OUTPURST is currently playing host to a pair of
SpaceX Dragon spacecraft Signus cargo ship we just mentioned, Jacks's

(18:53):
HTVX one cargo ship, two Rose Cosmos Say Use capsules,
and two rose Cosmos Progress cargo ships. The Signus is
flying Northrop Grumman's twenty third commercial resupply mission for NASA
and was repositioned using the station's Canada two rodbody arm. NASA,
Northrop Grumman, and los Cosmos jointly planned the move to

(19:14):
clear the wave for the arrival of THESS twenty eighth
spacecraft late last month and it's near three person crew.
The Signas is expected to remain docked until March, when
it will depart loaded with up to eleven thousand pounds
of trash and excess gear and then re enter its
atmosphere were all burn up. Meanwhile, the ten member Expedition
seventy three seventy four crew are about to drop down

(19:35):
to seven with the scheduled departure of the Sawyer's MS
twenty seven spacecraft and its three person crew Soliated to
undock from the procal module and return to Earth, landing
in Kazakhstan. This is Space Time, and time that to

(20:05):
take another brief look at some of the other stories
making news in science this week with the Science Report.
A new study claims flavonoids, chemicals found in dark colored fruits,
orange citrus, tea, white wine, and dark chocolate, may help
improve insulin resistance. Previous research has linked flavonoid intake with
benefits for cancer and blood pressure. Now are reporting the

(20:27):
general plus one examine data from Australian health and nutrition
surveys showing a link between the intake of these foods
and lower insulin resistance, a condition that can lead to
type two diabetes and other metabolic events. Now, this type
of study can't prove flavonoids other reason for the link,
but the authors say their lab tests were able to

(20:47):
show evidence of flavonoids affecting insulin resistance in cells. The
Israeli Defense Forces banned Chinese vehicles from their bases and
production facilities, issuing blanket orders at any military personnel or
civilian employees who own Chinese made cars must park them
well away from bases. The new IDEF regulations are based

(21:09):
on security concerns about data leaks from built in cameras,
GPS technology, and other sensors which are fitted to these
vehicles and which can be remotely controlled and monitored from China.
The fears images, audio, or other data collected by these
devices is being sent back to China and then hand
it over to Chinese intelligence agencies. Earlier this year, The

(21:30):
United Kingdom imposed a similar ban on parking electric vehicles
built with Chinese manufactured parts need British military bases because
of their own espionage feares. Concerns were also recently raised
in Australia about Chinese manufactured solar panels, batteries and inverters,
which are equipped with unexplained additional communications technology, allowing Beijing

(21:50):
to remotely control them and change their settings or turn
them off without any local approval, and concerns about Chinese
spying don't end there. In twenty three, the Australian government
began removing cameras made by Chinese companies from government facilities,
also on the grounds of security. A new study suggests

(22:10):
that over the past fifty years, top hit songs have
grown to become simpler, more negative, and to contain more
stress related words. The finding, published in the journal Scientific Reports,
analyzed song lyrics from the Billboard Hot one hundred charts
between nineteen seventy three and twenty twenty three now that's
some two thy one hundred and eighty six songs, and

(22:31):
have found that these changes in the lyrics coincided with
increasing reds of depression and anxiety, and also with increased
levels of negativity in the news media and literature. The
authors also looked at major events, and they found that
the Islamic terrorist attacks of September the eleven, two thousand
and one, and the beginning of the COVID nineteen pandemic
in twenty nineteen were associated with lyrics becoming more complex

(22:53):
and positive and containing fewer stress words, which the authors
say might signify some form of escapism stressful periods. After
just a week, it's already clear that kids across Australia
are easily getting around the federal government's social media ban
for under sixteen's. The band, which affects some two million children,

(23:14):
was designed to protect them from cyber bullying and inappropriate
material online, but it was hardly selective in nature, not
including gaming chat rooms or left wing social media platforms
like blue Sky. But as forecast, kids are fighting back.
Kids are easily getting around the restrictions by simply switching
to a range of other platforms like Lemonade, Yop, WhatsApp

(23:35):
and cover Star, or by simply scanning an older friend's
face by using VPNs, or by using their parents' social
media accounts and the age verification technology itself has also
turned out to be fairly poor, with many under sixteen
year olds being judged as over sixteen. But the software
technology editor Alexe Harrovruyt from tech Advice Start Life says,

(23:57):
all of these workarounds were always going to happen.

Speaker 4 (24:00):
I mean that was already known before the band came
into place.

Speaker 5 (24:02):
There were stories of teenagers finding out how But as tofa.

Speaker 4 (24:05):
Field on X who's a commentator who was showing as
of information about voting and how to vote your preferences
in the last federal versions of Australia, he said, look,
parents have an obligation to show and pick their children
if you get around the social media band and they
can't talk to their parents because somebody has subjected them
to online harm, which honestly, we should teach the children
how to deal with if they've been subjected to something

(24:26):
and well they can't talk to the teachers or the
government about it because it's against all. The only people
that have left that can trust other parents. If the
children I had to get online safely and they can
talk to their parents about it, we have some trust there.
But then worried that your kids are going to be
doing this thing behind your back, which is what the
government rules have created this reality. So yeah, week one,
it's chaos already. Of course, Albour Prime Minister.

Speaker 5 (24:47):
Has said it's the finest thing he's done all throughout history.
I've seen this on x under Elon Musk and other
people posting.

Speaker 4 (24:52):
The same thing.

Speaker 5 (24:53):
But the people trying to sensor speech are never the
good guys.

Speaker 4 (24:56):
And that's really what it comes down to.

Speaker 1 (24:58):
Now you're a multiple world when you've won in creative
writing and this time you've won four controversy.

Speaker 4 (25:03):
Oh yes, Well there's the Consensus Group Awards I've been
giving allso over twenty years, mainly to companies for their
innovations in software, agricultural technology, medical technology, hardware. It's a
business awards, but I also have an IT Writer's Award
which are going for just about as long. Well, it's
the most controversial writer award, and it's an.

Speaker 5 (25:22):
Article I wrote about Telstra and their.

Speaker 4 (25:24):
Ten dollars a month's discount which removed a Wi Fi
seven router that costs seven hundred dollars to buy if
you've bought it separately.

Speaker 5 (25:29):
It removes the.

Speaker 4 (25:30):
Four G five G simcard back up in case your
wide connection goes down. If you were to have one
of those in Telstra, it would cost you a lot
more than ten dollars a month. You also need some
of the AI fixed for any Wi Fi problems that
you have, And really this discount makes it easy for
Telstra not to serve you as a customer properly and
all for you to save warping thirty two point nine
cents a day. So I just said this was a

(25:51):
terrible discount, and Telster was playing a joke on all
of us to offer this, and their PR people said, oh,
competitive was the market. I said, well, it's still bad.

Speaker 5 (25:58):
And here I am a few months winning an.

Speaker 4 (26:01):
Award for pointing that out. And I did tell tells
for about it that I've heard nothing about.

Speaker 1 (26:05):
That's Alexa Harrol royd im take advice, start life, and
that's the show for now. Spacetime is available every Monday,

(26:27):
Wednesday and Friday through bytes dot com, SoundCloud, YouTube, your
favorite podcast download provider, and from space Time with Stuart
Gary dot com. Space Time's also broadcast through the National
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(26:49):
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Speaker 2 (27:10):
You've been listening to space Time with Stuart Garry. This
has been another quality podcast production from bytes dot com.