Key Questions:
Where do they come from? Answer: from every direction in the cosmos, and they come from very far away.
How can the energy output of thousands of millions of galaxies be expended so quickly? A supernova requires weeks to fully expend it's energy! Answer: Unknown.
What can power such outbursts? Answer: Unknown, although the explosions may come from death of massive stars. Another theory suggests the burst is triggered by a massive star collapse into a black hole. Please welcome the term collapsar to the expanding universe of our language. Recent evidence from Hubble suggests a link with Supernovae.
Soft Bursters operating in the hard X-Ray region of the spectrum have also been detected. Current theory again has expanded the language to include the new word magnetar.
For more information, please check out the following links.
