Many models proposed to explain cosmic gamma‐ray bursts

The various wavelength regimes of observational astronomy seem to generate their maximum excitement when rapid time‐varying phenomena are first observed. For example, radioastronomy gave us pulsars; x‐ray astronomy has its flares and pulsating sources. Now it is the turn of gamma‐ray astronomy. Ray Klebesadel, Ian Strong and Roy Olson (Los Alamos) recently reported finding 16 short bursts of cosmic gamma radiation in three‐years‐worth of data from the Vela satellite program.