File:What Are Gamma-ray Bursts? (SVS14738).jpg

English: Watch to learn more about gamma-ray bursts, the most powerful explosions in the cosmos. They first came to the attention of astronomers in the 1970s when new satellites detected this surprising phenomenon. Over decades, scientists have found that these blasts could be detected somewhere in the sky almost every day, and that they were both extremely distant — the closest known is over 100 million light-years away — and enormously powerful. Gamma-ray bursts are now linked to the explosive deaths of massive stars and to mergers of compact objects, like neutron stars and black holes, but many puzzles remain. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight CenterMusic: “Time Science,” Steve Fawcett [ASCAP] and Katherine F Martin [BMI], Universal Production Music Watch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel.Complete transcript available.