中子星碰撞

Two neutron stars begin to merge in this illustration, blasting a jet of high-speed particles and producing a cloud of debris. These gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are the most powerful events in the universe. Scientists think these kinds of events are factories for a significant portion of the universe’s heavy elements, including gold. They based their estimates on the rate of short burst GRBs thought to occur across the cosmos, but a Dec. 11, 2021, discovery showed they’ll need to factor long bursts into their calculations as well.

For the last few decades, astronomers have generally divided GRBs into two categories. Long bursts emit gamma rays for two seconds or more and originate from the formation of dense objects like black holes in the centers of massive collapsing stars. Short bursts emit gamma rays for less than two seconds and are caused by mergers of dense objects like neutron stars.

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Image Credits: Sonoma State Univ./A. Simonnet; NASA

在这张图中，两颗中子星开始合并，喷射出高速粒子流，并产生碎片云。这些伽马射线暴（GRBs）是宇宙中最强大的事件。科学家们认为，这类事件是宇宙中很大一部分重元素（包括金元素）的工厂。他们的估计是基于据信在整个宇宙中发生的短爆GRB的速率，但2021年12月11日的一项发现表明，他们也需要在计算中考虑长爆。

在过去的几十年里，天文学家通常将伽马射线暴分为两类。长爆发出的伽马射线持续两秒或更长时间，起源于密集物体的形成，比如大质量坍缩恒星中心的黑洞。短爆释放的伽马射线持续时间不到两秒，是由中子星等密集物体的合并引起。

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影像来源：Sonoma State Univ./A. Simonnet; NASA