Researchers found a specific breed of star that "switches" off its radio transmission before exploding, collapsing, and transforming into a black hole.
These exploding stars let out one last powerful gamma ray burst (a "strong beam of highly energetic radiation") before it meets its demise, a Curtin University news release reported.
This is the first time a gamma ray burst has been observed that was not followed by an eerie radio afterglow.
The research team originally were working to prove that a gamma ray burst would always be followed by a radio afterglow.
"But we were wrong. After studying an ultra-sensitive image of gamma-ray bursts with no afterglow, we can now say the theory was incorrect and our telescopes have not failed us," lead researcher and Curtin research fellow Dr Paul Hancock said.
To make their observation the team stacked 200 separate images of a gamma ray burst on top of each other; but the scientists were still not able to detect a radio glow.
The team suggested there are two distinct types of gamma ray bursts that could be related the the exploding star's magnetic field.
"Gamma-ray bursts are thought to mark the birth of a Black Hole or Neutron Star - both of which have super-dense cores. But Neutron Stars have such strong magnetic fields (a million times stronger than those of Black Holes) that producing gamma-rays are more difficult," Hancock said. "We think that those stars that collapse to form a Neutron Star have energy left over to produce the radio afterglow whereas those that become Black Holes put all their energy into one final powerful gamma-ray flash."
The researchers are now working to find the differences between the two proposed types of gamma ray burst.
"We now have to take a whole new look at gamma-ray bursts - so far this work has shown that being wrong is sometimes more interesting than being right," Hancock said.
