Something doesn’t add up. Out there in the wide universe, there are two types of massive energy sources: quasars and gamma-ray bursts. Oddly, there are four times as many galaxies in the direction of gamma-ray bursts as there are in the direction of quasars. Astronomers Jason Prochaska and Gabriel Prochter of University of California, Santa Cruz, counted them.

The best current hypotheses are that gamma-ray bursts are the result of huge supernova explosions, and quasars are thought to be the energy released from matter falling into supermassive black holes at the centre of galaxies. If these hypotheses are correct, then there is no reason to expect more galaxies in one direction than the other.

This could be something new and important. Or it could be a statistical illusion from a limited sample size (Prochaska and Prochter had data from only 15 gamma bursts). NASA could soon give us the answer from its SWIFT mission.

SWIFT is a complex program involving an orbiting gamma-ray detector that signals other telescopes when it picks up a burst. SWIFT captures about 100 gamma bursts a year, but many gamma bursts last only a few milliseconds, and telescopes often don’t have time to align to the source of the burst in time to see anything. To test Prochaska and Prochter’s finding, only 10-20 bursts per year yield useful data, but this should be enough. Within a year or two we should know whether we are looking at an important new finding or a blip in scientific history.

Story via PhysicsWeb.