> A Bright Light Shining Upon Us
>    http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2008/910/2
>
> By Phil Berardelli
> ScienceNOW Daily News
> 10 September 2008
>
> The incident was so extreme, it almost defies description. In the wee hours of the morning
> of 19 March, astronomers detected from more than halfway across the universe a burst of
> gamma rays brighter than a hundred-billion suns--and aimed squarely at Earth. Now, after 6
> months of analysis, an international team of astronomers has discovered why the event was
> so extraordinary.
>
>  From brief glimpses throughout the past decade, astronomers have pieced together a
> standard theory of gamma ray bursts. When massive stars exhaust their nuclear fuel and can
> no longer resist the relentless, crushing force of gravity, they collapse violently. As a
> star much more massive than the sun contracts to the size of an asteroid--or even smaller
> if it becomes a black hole--it creates unimaginable densities, temperatures, and energy. A
> great deal of that energy rebounds outward in a jet of particles traveling at nearly the ...