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Submission + - Scientists Forced To Reexamine Theories In Light Of Massive Gamma-Ray Burst (csmonitor.com)

Submitted by cold fjord
cold fjord writes: Developments from this previous story continue. The Christian Science Monitor reports, "An exploded star some 3.8 billion light-years away is forcing scientists to overhaul much of what they thought they knew about gamma-ray bursts – intense blasts of radiation triggered, in this case, by a star tens of times more massive than the sun that exhausted its nuclear fuel, exploded, then collapsed to form a black hole. Last April, gamma rays from the blast struck detectors in gamma-ray observatories orbiting Earth, triggering a frenzy of space- and ground-based observations. Many of them fly in the face of explanations researchers have developed during the past 30 years ... “Some of our theories are just going down the drain,” said Charles Dermer, an astrophysicist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico ... while typical long-duration bursts last from a few seconds to a few minutes, GRB 130427A put on its display for 20 hours. The event's duration, relatively close proximity, and the range of observatories in space and on the ground that could monitor it at a range of wavelengths has provided scientists with an unprecedented opportunity to explore the workings of one of the more extreme ends a star can inflict on itself. ... Scientists stumbled across the first gamma-ray burst in 1967, when a US satellite designed to detect nuclear-weapons tests in space picked up a burst's emissions. ... By 1973, the data were declassified and published, opening a window on the mysterious phenomenon." — The 21 November 2013 Science Express has abstracts for four related papers. More at Sky &Telescope and NASA.

Comment Agricultural rather... (Score 3, Insightful) 257

by thorgil (#42552415) Attached to: What Did Google Earth Spot In the Chinese Desert?

Looks to me to be some kind of agricultural/horticultural research. Some structures are clearly old defunct greenhouses and plastic tunnels.
  Big U-shaped building may house offices. Big blue-roofed building to the right looks like a chicken farm.
North of complexes is what looks like a dried riverbed, a possible source of water (subsurface). /T

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