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Gamma Ray Bursters

Burster, deep-space source of abrupt surges of energy in the X-ray region of the electromagnetic spectrum. A research satellite first detected a burster in 1975. Since then, several other bursters have been detected, mainly in the disc of our own Milky Way galaxy. The bursts last a few seconds and amount to about a tenfold increase in X-ray energy. The mechanisms involved are under investigation. Similar gamma-ray outbursts, on the other hand, are distributed randomly across the sky and in 1997 were shown, by analysis of the all-sky map of bursts produced by the Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory and comparison with optically identified sources, to lie at distances of billions of light years.