Astronomers have spotted an immensely energetic explosion emanating from an ancient galaxy, apparently triggered by a type of star destruction hypothesized for decades but never before observed. You might call it stellar death by demolition derby.
Researchers said the gamma-ray burst they observed may have been caused by the collision of two compact stars in the densely packed and chaotic environment near a supermassive black hole at the center of this elliptically shaped galaxy. They suspect the two doomed stars were neutron stars, which pack roughly the mass of our sun into a sphere only the size of a city.
Immense gravitational forces exerted by the black hole at the galactic center may wreak havoc, perturbing the motion of nearby stars and other objects and increasing the chances of collisions - akin, the researchers said, to a demolition derby. Very massive stars - more than 10 times the sun's mass - die in a supernova blast that leaves behind neutron stars or even denser black holes, whose gravitational pull is so strong no matter or light can escape. Relatively low-mass stars like our sun puff up and blow off their outer layers, transforming into a stellar remnant called a white dwarf."The idea that stars also can die through collisions in extremely dense regions has been around since at least the 1980s.
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