Gamma-ray bursts, the most powerful explosions known, were first detected in the late 1960s. They are random, fleeting, and can occur from any region of the sky. Try finding the location of a camera flash somewhere in a vast sports stadium and you'll have a sense of the challenge facing gamma-ray burst hunters. Solving this mystery took unprecedented coordination among scientists using a multitude of ground-based telescopes and NASA satellites. This illustration shows the location of GRB 050709. (Illustration: NASA/D.Berry)
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Gamma-ray bursts, the most powerful explosions known, were first detected in the late 1960s. They are random, fleeting, and can occur from any region of the sky. Try finding the location of a camera flash somewhere in a vast sports stadium and you'll have a sense of the challenge facing gamma-ray burst hunters. Solving this mystery took unprecedented coordination among scientists using a multitude of ground-based telescopes and NASA satellites. This illustration shows the location of GRB 050709. (Illustration: NASA/D.Berry)
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