Talk:GRB 970508

GRB 970508 is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so.

This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on February 5, 2010.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
March 18, 2009	Good article nominee	Listed
April 14, 2009	Featured article candidate	Promoted

A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on March 7, 2009.

The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that GRB 970508 was the first gamma-ray burst to have its redshift measured?

Current status: Featured article

...effectively ending the debate - illogical

Although the possibility of multiple types of GRBs meant that the two theories were not mutually exclusive, the distance measurement unequivocally placed the source of the GRB outside the Milky Way, effectively ending the debate.

Despite the reference listed later in the article, there is nothing here that demonstrates the debate is over. If the two theories are not mutually exclusive - if local, low energy GRBs can exist in a universe with very distance, high energy GRBs - then the distance and energy measurements of one GRB cannot exclude the other. Either the non-exclusivity statement is wrong, or the "effectively ending the debate" conclusion is wrong. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.158.222.82 (talk) 09:08, 5 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I was thinking the same thing, beat me to it. -=-Jonbobsmith —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jonbobsmith (talk • contribs) 16:37, 5 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I no longer have the sources with me (though I could go check them out of the library if you wanted), but perhaps the wee bit that I actually remember can help to clarify this issue: The possibility of multiple types of bursts did indeed mean that the two theories were not mutually exclusive; in other words, it is possible for both extragalactic and galactic GRBs to exist. However, the astronomical community at the time was divided quite firmly on the issue—people either believed they were extragalactic or they were not. The followers of the galactic model were adamant that it would be impossible to detect any extragalactic bursts, and therefore based all of their models on the assumption that the observed bursts occurred within our galaxy, despite the fact that neither side of the (literal) debate had any hard evidence supporting their claims. When the distance to this particular burst was determined, it was clear that the galactic folk were wrong. Does this help? --Cryptic C62 · Talk 05:30, 7 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

One current theory in favor of cosmological-distances-only is that if lower-energy bursts do occur in the extended galactic halo, M31 in Andromeda is sufficiently close by that bursts in the nearer part of its halo would be detected also, making the distribution anisotropic. This has not been observed. --71.219.9.67 (talk) 20:58, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

GRBs & Causes?

I don't think this article does a good job of explaning what _causes_ a GRB. It says they are caused by explosions . . . but what causes the explosion? It is the explosion of a star or--???

Co-sign on the above. 68.229.185.85 (talk) 23:17, 5 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Read Gamma-ray burst. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 05:22, 7 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Unclear sentence

What does it mean: "The burst is expected to arrive in 200–8000 years."? It has been detected, so obviously it has already arrived... Tr00rle (talk) 00:57, 6 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Good spot. I'm not an expert but this just looks like vandalism to me. I removed it. Lithopsian (talk) 12:49, 26 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]