Key Takeaways:
On July 2, 1967, the U.S.’s Vela 3 and 4 satellites, originally launched to monitor compliance with the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty by detecting weapons tests, accidentally detected fast and powerful flashes of high-energy photons, or gamma rays, from space. These events were later identified as gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) in a 1973 paper by Los Alamos scientists, led by Ray Klebesadel. The Vela observations were the first detection of these phenomena, and at the time, their origin was debated – were they from within our solar system? Outside our galaxy? Eventually understanding evolved, particularly after the 1996 launch of the Italian-Dutch BeppoSAX satellite, which could rapidly locate a GRB’s source, allowing astronomers to observe its “afterglow” and measure its redshifts. Subsequent research established that these bursts were extragalactic and extremely powerful, emitting energy comparable to a supernova in seconds and appearing billions of times brighter than our Sun.
