Hawaii astronomers track down source of short gamma-ray
burstsUniversity of Hawaiʻi Hawaii astronomers using the
Frederick C. Gillett Gemini Telescope on Mauna Kea have found
the source of short flashes of gamma rays from outer space: a
collision of two dead stars. For 35 years, astronomers have been
fascinated by mysterious flashes of invisible energy from
apparently random places in the sky. These events, known as
gamma-ray bursts, last less than a few seconds and were first
discovered by U.S. military satellites designed to monitor
Russian nuclear tests. The shortness of the bursts make them
difficult to catch, so astronomers had been uncertain whether
the bursts were coming from the solar system, the Milky Way or
distant galaxies. Research on the short bursts floundered for
decades. But on July 9, 2005, Paul Price of the University of
Hawaii Institute for Astronomy and Kathy Roth of the Gemini
Observatory received news of a burst detected by a NASA's High
Energy Transient Explorer satellite. Tipped off by