WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A monster black hole shredded a Sun-like
star, producing a strangely long-lasting flash of gamma rays
that probably won’t be seen again in a million years,
astronomers reported on Thursday. That is definitely not the
norm for gamma ray bursts, energetic blasts that typically flare
up and end in a matter of seconds or milliseconds, often the
sign of the death throes of a collapsing star. “This is truly
different from any explosive event we have seen before,” said
Joshua Bloom of the University of California-Berkeley, a co-
author of research on the blast published in the journal
Science. Initially spied on March 28 by NASA’s Swift spacecraft,
which is trolling the universe for gamma ray bursts, this
particular flash has lasted more than two months and is still
going on, Bloom said in a telephone interview. What makes this
even stranger is that the black hole, located in the
constellation Draco (The Dragon) about 4 billion light years, or
24 sextillion miles (38.62 sextillion km) — 24 foll