Astronomers explain the observations of GRB 200415A with the sequence of events illustrated here. A magnetar is a city-sized ball containing more mass than the Sun that boasts the strongest magnetic fields known. A sudden reconfiguration of this field, possibly caused by a starquake, produced a quick, powerful pulse of X-rays and gamma rays (magenta). The event also ejected a blob of matter that followed this pulse, but moved slightly slower, at about 99% the speed of light. After a few days, they both reached the boundary, called a bow shock, where interstellar piles up. Light from the flare passes through, followed many seconds later by the fast-moving cloud of ejected particles. The cloud interacts with gas at the bow shock, creating shock waves that accelerate particles, which produce the highest-energy gamma rays detected by NASA's Fermi mission.
Read more: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/...
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