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Showing posts with label mysterious. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mysterious. Show all posts

Monday, July 14, 2014

Mysterious stash of coins found hidden in cave

A cave in Britain may have been the perfect hiding place for a stash of coins … because 2,000 years passed before anyone found them. A climber sheltering from the rain happened upon four coins in Dovedale, Derbyshire, reports the Ashbourne News Telegraph, which led to a National Trust excavation of the site, called Reynard’s Cave.

And what exactly did they find? A trove of 26 Roman and Late Iron Age coins and 20 Late Iron Age gold and silver pieces that may have belonged to the Corieltavi Tribe; three of the Roman coins pre-date the 43 AD invasion of Britain, reports the BBC.

The discovery is a triple mystery: Roman coins have never been found in a cave, coins from these two civilizations have never been buried together, and the Corieltavi have long been thought to have occupied areas further east during the Late Iron Age.

The stash was possibly hidden in a cave for protection; Late Iron Age coins were largely symbols of power and status, rather than used to buy goods.

However, it's possible the coins' owner squirreled away his "best stuff," or was awaiting an increase in their value, speculates one archeologist on the dig. The project proved exciting for one participant—a military vet involved in the excavation as part of a rehabilitation program.

"I was working at the back of the cave, in the dark, and I was the first person to find a coin—a silver coin. It was so exciting,” she tells the Telegraph. The coins have been cleaned and will become permanent museum display. (In other ancient news, Rome’s Coliseum was once a condo of sorts.)

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Thursday, April 4, 2013

Polar Bears' Mysterious Origins Befuddle Scientists

Polar bears and brown bears diverged much longer ago than previously thought, new research suggests.

Past estimates for this divergence came from brown bears living on the Admiralty, Baranof and Chichagof (ABC) Islands in Alaska.

But according to a new study, ABC Island bears are actually the result of mating between brown bears and polar bears in the last several thousand years, making the population useless for determining polar bear roots.

"If we really want to understand the evolution of brown bears and polar bears , we should ignore them [the ABC bears]," said study co-author Beth Shapiro, an evolutionary biologist at the University of California Santa Cruz. "They are a special case and they're not going to tell us anything about the origin of the polar bear."

The findings were published today (March 14), in the journal PLOS Genetics.

ABC bears

Just when polar bears and brown bears diverged has been an ongoing debate.

Past research revealed that brown bears on the ABC Islands, off the southeastern coast of Alaska, had mitochondrial DNA that looked just like polar bear DNA. (Mitochondrial DNA comes only from the mother and is carried in the cytoplasm in the cell's energy-making structures called mitochondria.)

That seemed to suggest polar bears diverged from brown bears around 150,000 years ago, Shapiro told LiveScience.

But that didn't make sense: The two majestic species have different behaviors and physical appearances, and other gene studies suggested they split off from one another 4 million years ago. The strange finding led researchers to propose outlandish theories to explain the mystery, Shapiro said, including intermixing at least two separate times in their past.

Migrant dads

To sort out the confusion, Shapiro and her colleagues analyzed the DNA of seven polar bears, two brown bears (one from ABC Islands) and one black bear.

The team found that the ABC Islands' bear shared more than 6 percent of the DNA in its X sex chromosome, but just 1 percent of its overall DNA, with polar bears.

Because X-chromosome genes come from the mother most of the time, the findings suggest the polar bear DNA originally came from female bears. [In Photos: 8 Bizarre Hybrid Animals]

To explain the findings, the researchers proposed a strange scenario: The brown bears of ABC Islands were once polar bears. But as the glaciers melted thousands of years ago, those polar bears became trapped on their islands.

Further warming led to better conditions for brown bears to colonize the Alaskan mainland. Because males are the ones that disperse, they swam across the channel to the ABC Islands over a long period of time, mating with the local females (polar bears). As a result, the ABC bears eventually came to look and act like brown bears, while still maintaining traces of their polar bear past in their mitochondrial DNA.

The genetic analysis revealed a wide estimate for when brown bears and polar bears first diverged, ranging from hundreds of thousands to millions of years ago.

The findings suggest people should ignore ABC bears when trying to sort out polar bears' history, Shapiro said.

Unfortunately, scientists aren't any closer to solving the mystery of polar bear origins.

"Polar bears live in a place that it is very unlikely that they're going to leave fossils," Shapiro said, referring to the fact that fossils don't survive in the icy, watery conditions of the Arctic. That makes it difficult to trace their evolution from a common ancestor with brown bears, she said. 

Follow Tia Ghose on Twitter @tiaghose. Follow LiveScience @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on LiveScience.com

Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Thursday, July 5, 2012

Tiny Tyrannosaur's Mysterious Origins Divide Scientists

Years before the Mongolian president intervened in the auction of a tyrannosaur skeleton thought to have been illegally taken from that country, a fossilized dinosaur with similarly controversial origins followed a very different path.

Once removed from the rock, the bones of this dinosaur would, to some, reveal the existence of a new species of tiny but unmistakable predator. However, given few clues as to where these fossils came out of the ground, paleontologists have yet to resolve the debate about the dinosaur's true identity.

At a fossil show about nine years ago, a dealer approached Henry Kriegstein, a fossil collector and eye surgeon in Massachusetts, with photos of a block of rock that contained the remains of a small, meat-eating dinosaur curled up in a death pose. Enough of the fossils had been exposed for Kriegstein to suspect he was looking at a juvenile tyrannosaur, and he purchased the chunk of stone and fossil. [Image Gallery: Dinosaur Daycare]

An illegal export?

The dealer told Kriegstein that he had bought the fossils from someone else and offered only the most vague details about its origin, Kriegstein said. "I knew it came from Asia, so I had suspicions it may have been removed illegally."

He was suspicious because Asian nations, such as Mongolia and China, don't allow the export of fossils excavated within their borders. In the case of the tyrannosaur, a species known as Tarbosaurus bataar, paleontologists say the specimen originated in Mongolia, where law makes fossils the property of the state and smuggling them out a crime.

Too important to keep

Kriegstein said he sent his purchase to a commercial paleontological company, Western Paleontological Laboratories in Utah, to have the fossils removed from the rock. While work was under way, the company sent Kenneth Carpenter, a paleontologist at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, photos of the specimen.

"When they contacted me they had not finished the cleaning of the bones. It still had a lot of rock on it, but what I saw in the pictures was tantalizing. It looked different," said Carpenter, who is now curator of paleontology at the Prehistoric Museum at Utah State University-Eastern. [Image Gallery: Dinosaur Fossils]

Later, after seeing the fossils in person, Carpenter told Kriegstein in a letter that the fossils were important to science and should be donated to a museum.  

"I don't want to have an important specimen like that in my living room," Kriegstein said after receiving the letter.

He sent photos to Paul Sereno, a University of Chicago paleontologist he admired.

Dinosaur detective work

"This was not a composite of multiple specimens or a forgery carved by a desperate fossil dealer.  I could see a mini tyrannosaur," Sereno wrote.

Kriegstein agreed to donate the dinosaur to the University of Chicago, so Sereno could formally describe it, requesting that the new dinosaur be named after his father, Roman Kriegstein.

Figuring out where the dinosaur came from was crucial to understanding what it was. In research published in the journal Science in 2009, Sereno and colleagues concluded it was taken from the ground in the Yixian Formation of northern China based on characteristics of the fossils, the sandstone that entombed them, and the mollusks and fish bones contained with them. This origin would make the specimen about 125 million years old.

Based on an examination of the bones, they suggested the 9-foot-long (less than 3 meters) specimen was something extraordinary: A miniature ancestor and look-alike to the giant tyrannosaurs epitomized by Tyrannosaurus rex and its Asian cousin, Tarbosaurus bataar. This little dinosaur, which they classified as a young adult, shared their distinctive features, including the oversize head with powerful jaws, puny arms and lanky hind legs for running, but it evolved much earlier, Sereno’s team concluded.  

Keeping with Kriegstein’s request, Sereno named the dinosaur Raptorex kriegsteini.

The debate

But not everyone accepts his take. A re-analysis published in PLoS ONE in 2011 by other researchers challenged Sereno's conclusion regarding the age of the dinosaur and its origin, suggesting the fossils actually belonged to a juvenile Tarbosaurus from Mongolia.

Carpenter, whose letter prompted Kriegstein to donate the fossils, agrees to this latter assessment, citing features of the vertebrae that he says indicate the dinosaur had not yet matured.

"Of course, it depends on where it comes from, if it is from rocks much older than any tarbosaur, then Paul is essentially correct," Carpenter said.

Tarbosaurus specimens have been found only in the Nemegt Formation in Mongolia, a rock formation dated to the Maastrichtian Age, beginning around 70 million years ago — much younger than Sereno's estimate for Raptorex.

"That is why it would be crucial to find out where this specimen came from," Carpenter said.

At this point, he puts the chances of a definitive answer at "zip," saying, "Nobody is going to come forward and say, 'Yes, we are the ones who plundered the site.'"

Sereno has stood by his initial conclusion — "We are confident it is not a tarbosaur," he said — although he considers the fossils origin to be in dispute and has continued looking for more conclusive evidence to tie them to a particular place. 

"We've tried every line of attack," he said. Currently, he is hoping mollusks found with the specimen will solve the puzzle.

Sereno has made arrangements to send the fossils to a museum in China near the site where he believes they were discovered.

Follow Wynne Parry on Twitter @Wynne_Parry or LiveScience @livescience. We're also on Facebook & Google+.

Copyright 2012 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Mysterious Ultra-Red Galaxies May Be Cosmic 'Missing Link' (SPACE.com)

Scientists have spied a new type of ultra-red galaxy lurking at the far reaches of the universe, a new study reports.

Using NASA's Spitzer space telescope, the astronomers spotted four remarkably red galaxies nearly 13 billion light-years from Earth — meaning it's taken their light about 13 billion years to reach us. So researchers are seeing the galaxies as they were in the early days of the universe, which itself is about 13.7 billion years old.

NASA's Hubble space telescope has imaged even more ancient galaxies, but the four ruddy objects seen by Spitzer are a breed apart, researchers said.

"Hubble has shown us some of the first protogalaxies that formed, but nothing that looks like this," study co-author Giovanni Fazio, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, said in a statement. "In a sense, these galaxies might be a 'missing link' in galactic evolution."

The four newfound galaxies shine much more brightly in infrared light than in visible wavelengths, which is how the infrared-sensitive Spitzer was able to detect them. The research team still isn't sure why they're so strikingly red.

There are three main reasons why a galaxy may appear red, researchers said. First, it may be extremely dusty. Second, it could contain many old, red stars. Or third, the galaxy may be extremely distant, in which case the expansion of the universe has stretched its light to very long (and very red) wavelengths.

All three of these factors may be in play in the newfound galaxies' case, researchers said. But they're not sure, since much about them remains mysterious.

"We've had to go to extremes to get the models to match our observations," said study lead author Jiasheng Huang, also of the CfA.

The four galaxies are grouped together and appear to be physically associated, rather than constituting a chance alignment of like objects, researchers said.

The team hopes to study the galaxies further, perhaps employing powerful ground-based instruments such as the Atacama Large Millimeter Array in Chile. And they'd like to find more examples of this new type of galactic "species."

"There's evidence for others in other regions of the sky," Fazio said. "We'll analyze more Spitzer and Hubble observations to track them down."

The astronomers reported their results online in the Astrophysical Journal.

Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.


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Saturday, October 15, 2011

Missions Proposed to Explore Mysterious Tilted Planet Uranus (SPACE.com)

Michael Schirber, Astrobiology Magazine
Space.com Michael Schirber, Astrobiology Magazine
space.com – Fri Oct 14, 7:44 am ET

Earlier this year, the Planetary Science Decadal Survey recommended that NASA consider sending a mission to the planet Uranus. With all the attention paid to Mars, Jupiter and even poor little Pluto, what's the draw in going to Uranus?

Lots, says Mark Hofstadter of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

"Uranus is a type of a planet that we know very little about," Hofstadter said. "Thirty years ago, we thought Uranus and Neptune were just smaller versions of Jupiter and Saturn."

We now know, however, that the two outermost planets in our solar neighborhood are not gas giants filled with hydrogen and helium gas, but rather "ice giants" containing a large mixture of water, methane, ammonia and carbon dioxide. [Photos of Uranus, the Strange Tilted World]

Current tallies of exoplanets suggest that ice giants are more common in our galaxy than the larger gas giants.

"We'd like to study our local examples of this common type of planet," Hofstadter said.

If you had to pick one, Uranus is probably the better destination than Neptune. It challenges scientific models with its unique rotation and puzzling internal structure. Moreover, planet number seven is easier to get to than planet number eight.

Hofstadter is one of a group of scientists exploring the potential of sending an orbiter to Uranus. One particular proposal, called Uranus Pathfinder, was recently considered by the European Space Agency (ESA).

"Both the European and American sides are convinced that an orbiter is needed rather than a flyby," said Chris Arridge of University College, London, principal investigator of Uranus Pathfinder. "But then costs rear their ugly head."

Uranus Pathfinder made it far in the selection process for ESA's next round of medium class missions, but ultimately it was passed up.

"The project is by no means dead," Arridge said. "Interest is building to go back to Uranus." 

Unique Uranus

Go back, indeed.

In 1986, the Voyager 2 spacecraft flew by Uranus on its way to the edge of the solar system. The pictures that were beamed back showed a uniform blue ball that almost seemed boring in comparison to the rich, colored surfaces of Jupiter and Saturn. But Uranus's featureless façade hides the strangest interior in the solar system.

The first striking aspect of Uranus is the way that it's tipped over on its side, with its rotational axis lying in the disk of the solar system. Scientists speculate that a giant collision or two knocked Uranus over long ago.

The odd rotational orientation may have some effect on the ice giant's internal dynamics. Uranus is the only planet we know of that can't be represented by a simple three-layer model comprised of a rocky core, a water-rich mantle and a gas atmosphere. Inside Uranus, these different phases of matter must be mixed together in some complex way. 

To sort out this internal structure, Hofstadter, Arridge and their colleagues want to send an orbiter to map the gravitational field around Uranus. In addition, remote measurements in microwave and infrared wavelengths could fill in details of the atmospheric composition, like the abundances of different ices.

(It should be noted that "ice" is used to describe molecules like water and methane that would be frozen at Uranus's orbit. However, these compounds are likely to be in a dense liquid-like state at the lower depths of the planet where the pressure is extremely high.)

A better understanding of the internal structure may help explain Uranus's bizarre magnetic field, which is tilted at 60 degrees with respect to the rotational axis. This would be like having Earth's magnetic pole going through New Orleans.

"It is not something we understand very well," Arridge said "If we can study it more closely with magnetic field measurements, we might learn something about how planets produce magnetic fields in general."

Colder than cold

Because of Uranus's odd rotational orientation, winters and summers are literally night and day apart. During a quarter of the planet's 84-year orbit, one hemisphere monopolizes all the sunlight, while the other is completely dark. This was how Voyager 2 saw Uranus, with its southern hemisphere in full summer sun. And this might be why the planet looked so bland.

More recent images taken with ground telescopes during the southern autumn season have discovered clouds and huge wind storms traveling as fast as 500 mph (805 km/h).

"Uranus is more active than the Voyager images implied," Hofstadter said.

The climate activity on Uranus may have a very different origin than the well-known weather systems on Jupiter and Saturn. The impressive storms and clouds that decorate the facades of the gas giants are powered mostly by internal heat rising to the surface, but this heat supply is largely missing from Uranus. [Photos: Most Powerful Storms of the Solar System]

Scientists are curious to study this in more detail. Could it be that Uranus's strange internal structure is blocking the flow of heat to the surface on a continual or seasonal basis? Or perhaps the heat was "knocked out" during the supposed collision(s) that toppled the planet over?  An orbiter mission could get to the bottom of this by measuring temperature variations on the surface that would relate to heat transport.

The lack of heat from below makes Uranus the coldest planet in the solar system, with an average temperature of minus 371 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 224 degrees Celsius). (Pluto may be colder, but it's not a planet — in case you haven't heard.) 

Ironically, the thermodynamics on super-cold Uranus might tell us something about "hot Jupiters," which are exoplanets in extremely tight orbits around their host stars. The outer temperature of a hot Jupiter is assumed to be controlled by the incoming stellar radiation.

"Likewise, Uranus might be getting all of its energy from sunlight," Hofstadter explained. [Gallery: The Strangest Alien Planets]

What's in a name? That which we call a moon

The planet is not the only thing to visit. Scientists are also interested in the rings and satellites around Uranus.

The 27 known moons are named not after the gods and heroes of ancient mythology but rather for characters from the plays of Shakespeare and the poems of Alexander Pope. [Video: Uranus and Its 5 Largest Moons]

Voyager 2 only saw one side of these moons, since they were all turned like Uranus with their poles toward the sun. An orbiter mission would give a much more complete picture of the Uranian satellites.

"The Cassini mission has revealed a lot about Saturn's moons, and I think just as rich a return awaits us at Uranus," Arridge said.

One of the more intriguing moons is Miranda. Its surface is carved with canyons that suggest intense geologic activity.

"It looks like pieces of different puzzles stuck together," Hofstadter said.

The moon also boasts the highest cliff in the solar system, Verona Rupes, which has a drop-off of more than 3 miles (5 km).

Scientist have suggested that the two largest moons, Titania and Oberon, might have liquid oceans below their crusts. Only closer observations would be able to say for sure.

Intermixed with the moons are 13 narrow rings, which are so faint they were only detected by accident in 1977. The Uranian rings are distinct from the broad, bright rings of Saturn, so they offer a nice counterpoint in trying to understand the general physics of ring formation, Hofstadter said.

"Nice model" for astrobiology

Although the chances of life finding a niche somewhere around Uranus are unlikely, astrobiologists are interested in the role that Uranus and Neptune might have playedin the formation of the terrestrial planets.

The so-called "Nice model" (after the city in France where it was first discussed) posits that the late heavy bombardment may have been initiated around 4 billion years ago by a migration of Uranus and Neptune away from the sun. Such a planetary shift could have scattered comets in the outer solar system, putting some of them on collision trajectories with Earth and the other terrestrial planets.

If the late heavy bombardment did originate this way, then it could explain where much of our water and atmosphere may have come from.

"Did the arrival of these icy comets help to make Earth habitable?" Hofstadter wonders.

A Uranus mission could test the Nice model by carrying a probe, which could be dropped into Uranus's atmosphere. The probe could measure the abundances of certain noble gases, which can tell scientists at what distance from the sun Uranus formed.

If this data were to say that Uranus was born at a position closer to the sun than it currently resides, that would support an earlier migration. It would also help to explain why Uranus and Neptune are larger than certain planetary models  predict.

Where to go from here

The best time to launch a mission to Uranus would be sometime in the early 2020s, when the planet alignment would be prime for such a long journey. Depending on the chosen propulsion technology, the trip would take roughly 10 to 15 years.

Although most of the technology is at hand, Arridge says there are questions about how to supply electric power to the orbiter when it is almost 3 billion kilometers from the sun. Solar panels would need to be an unwieldy 4,305 square feet (400 square m) in size. Radioactive power is the alternative, but plutonium is becoming harder to come by.

A bigger issue is the cost. The ballpark estimate for a Uranus mission is between $1.5 billion and $2.7 billion, according to Hofstadter, who was lead author on a recent mission study. This price tag puts it in the territory of a flagship mission, the largest and most expensive missions in the NASA rubric.

In March 2011, the National Research Council released its vision for Planetary Science in the coming decade 2013-2022. This Decadal Surveyranked the priorities for flagship missions and gave the two top spots to a Mars sample return mission (MAX-C) and a Jupiter Europa Orbiter (JEO). For the third highest priority, the Survey chose the "Uranus Orbiter with Probe".

At the end of this past July, NASA responded to the Decadal Survey's recommendations. There was agreement over the prioritizing of flagship missions, but under the current fiscal challenges, "it is unlikely that NASA can execute the Survey's recommendation to initiate the Uranus Orbiter with Probe mission along with MAX-C and JEO in this decade," the response read. NASA will continue studying a Uranus mission for the future.

There is some talk of perhaps a collaboration between NASA and ESA to pool their resources, Hofstadter said. If not this decade, then maybe next. Uranus will wait, even if Earth-bound scientists have trouble doing so.

"I'm 48 years old, so the clock is ticking," Hofstadter said.

This story is presented in cooperation with Astrobiology Magazine, a web-based publication sponsored by the NASA astrobiology program. Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.


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Friday, July 1, 2011

Tag! Spyware Tracks Mysterious Basking Shark (LiveScience.com)

Basking sharks, one of the largest fish on Earth, are notoriously hard to find, despite their colossal size and unmistakable silhouette. Now, scientists working in California have called on satellite technology to help them track these mysterious and scarce sharks.

In early June, researchers with the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Fisheries Service affixed a tracking tag to a basking shark swimming about 5 miles (8 kilometers) off the San Diego coast. Despite the fact that satellite tags are now widely used to study marine animals, it is only the third time a basking shark has been tagged in the entire Pacific Ocean.

"Reasonable numbers haven't been seen off California since the late '80s and early '90s," said NOAA's Heidi Dewar, in an email. "So until recently it would have been hard to even get access to them to tag."

In fact, Dewar said, the species had become so elusive in the eastern Pacific that it fell off scientists' radar as part of the local fauna. Worldwide, very little is known about the life cycle of the giant fish, which can grow up to 45 feet (13 meters) long, second only to whale sharks in sheer size.

"They seem to nearly disappear for decades at a time and we have no idea where they might be going," Dewar told OurAmazingPlanet. "Japan, Russia, Ecuador? We also don't have any idea where the nursery for little basking sharks is."

Tagging trials

Basking sharks live in temperate, coastal waters around the world. In decades past, they were targeted for their valuable fins and liver oil. Their numbers plummeted and continue to decline, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

NOAA scientists John Hyde and Owyn Snodgrass tagged the first Pacific basking shark just about a year ago, in June 2010. Almost a year later, in May 2011, a second, 20-foot (6 m) fish was tagged, but it prematurely shed its tracker, which was found on a beach by a surfer and sent back to the lab.

"We got very lucky to recover the tag so quickly," Dewar said, adding that although the first tagged shark provided valuable information via satellite — data such as water temperature, depth and location — scientists get even more data on the fish's habits when the tags are returned.

The tracking devices are attached just below the dorsal fin, by means of a long, spear-like pole. Tagging a fish is no easy feat, yet one made slightly easier by basking sharks' habit of swimming slowly along the ocean surface, their cavernous mouths agape to catch swarms of krill and other tiny crustaceans.

Gentle giants

Despite their rather alarming appearance, Dewar said humans have nothing to fear from basking sharks.

"They are gentle giants," she said. "They aren't bothered by people in the water with them and have itty-bitty teeth."

There is hope that their sudden reappearance off Southern California will offer researchers a chance to finally solve some of the mysteries that surround the world's second-largest fish.

"The main misconception on our coast is that they don't occur here," Dewar said. "Hopefully, we will see more of them, and people will come to see them as a friendly neighbor."

Reach Andrea Mustain at @AndreaMustain.


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Monday, June 20, 2011

Scientists ID mysterious flash in distant galaxy (AP)

LOS ANGELES – Astronomers think they have solved the mystery of an extraordinary flash spied in a faraway galaxy, saying it came from a massive black hole that devoured a star after it wandered too close.

The awesome energy released by the feeding frenzy was first detected by NASA's Swift satellite on March 28 and was later confirmed by a fleet of space and ground telescopes.

Some scientists initially thought the bright flash was a gamma-ray burst from a star collapsing, but flaring from such an event typically lasts only a few hours.

Instead of fading, the cosmic outburst continued to burn bright and emit high-energy radiation that could be observed even today.

Two separate teams pored through data and concluded that an unsuspecting star the size of our sun likely got sucked in by the powerful tug of a giant black hole. Until then, the black hole had been relatively inactive. The findings were published online Thursday in the journal Science.

As the black hole gobbled up the star, it streamed a beam of energy straight at Earth that was recorded by telescopes. The stellar feast occurred in the heart of a galaxy 3.8 billion light years from Earth. A light year is about 6 trillion miles.

"This was clearly different than anything we've ever seen before," said one of the team leaders, Joshua Bloom, an astronomer at the University of California, Berkeley who classified the event as extremely rare.

Black holes are swirling, super-dense cores of galaxies that vacuum up nearly everything in sight. How they grow so huge remains a mystery. Scientists think the latest observation could help them better understand how galaxies form.

Could what happened in the distant galaxy occur in our Milky Way? In theory yes, say scientists, but the chances are low.

"It's not something worth losing sleep over," said researcher Andrew Levan of University of Warwick in England, who led the other team.

___

Online:

Science: http://www.sciencemag.org

___

Alicia Chang can be followed at: http://twitter.com/SciWriAlicia


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