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Transient Alerts » in reply to GRB 261007A — GRB, X-ray Transient

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In plain words Notable

A burst of gamma rays, the most energetic form of light, was detected on 7 October 2026 by SVOM, a China-France satellite, and by several other space telescopes, including Fermi, NuSTAR, AstroSat and the Einstein Probe. It came from a spot in the southern sky and lasted about 23 seconds, which makes it a long gamma-ray burst, the kind usually linked to the death of a massive star. Within minutes, ground telescopes found a fading optical afterglow, and Swift later detected an X-ray afterglow at the same position. A large telescope in Chile (the VLT) measured the distance from the afterglow's light: the explosion happened about 2.1 in redshift, meaning the light left roughly 10 billion years ago. The afterglow was bright at first, around magnitude 15 within two minutes, and had faded to about magnitude 21 a day later, as expected.

How unusual is it? A spectroscopic redshift (z = 2.101) and a bright optical afterglow caught within minutes and followed in X-rays by many telescopes make this better studied than most of the few hundred bursts seen each year, but the burst itself looks like a typical long gamma-ray burst, not a record-breaker.

Written by an AI model (claude-sonnet-5-5) from the official reports in this thread, and rewritten as new reports arrived (version 5); last updated . It may contain mistakes: the reports themselves are the authority.

GRB 261007A: Glowbug gamma-ray detection
GCN Circulars —

GCN Circular 45867
GRB 261007A: Glowbug gamma-ray detection
From: C.C. Cheung at Naval Research Lab
Issued: 2026-10-08 18:30 UTC
Type: GRB, Gamma-ray Transient

C.C. Cheung, R. Woolf, M. Kerr, J.E. Grove (NRL), A. Goldstein (USRA), C.A. Wilson-Hodge, D. Kocevski (MSFC), and M.S. Briggs (UAH) report:

The Glowbug gamma-ray telescope [1,2,3], operating on the International Space Station, reports the detection of GRB 261007A, which was also detected by SVOM (GCN 45824, 45863), Einstein Probe (GCN 45828), Fermi/GBM (GCN 45830), NuSTAR (GCN 45846), and AstroSat CZTI (GCN 45859).

Using an adaptive window with a resolution of 32-ms, the burst onset is determined to be 2026-10-07 05:39:48.536 with a duration of 26.6 s and a total significance of about 77 sigma. The light curve comprises a bright multi-peaked structure.

The analysis results presented here are preliminary and use a response function that lacks a detailed characterization of the surrounding passive structure of the ISS. Glowbug is a NASA-funded technology demonstrator for sensitive, low-cost gamma-ray transient telescopes developed, built, and operated by the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) with support from the University of Alabama in Huntsville, USRA, and NASA MSFC.

[1] Grove, J.E. et al. 2020, Proc. Yamada Conf. LXXI, arXiv:2009.11959
[2] Woolf, R.S. et al. 2022, Proc. SPIE, 12181, id. 121811O
[3] Woolf, R.S. et al. 2024, Proc. SPIE, 13151, id. 1315108

Distribution Statement A: Approved for public release. Distribution is unlimited.

Every one of the gamma-ray bursts GCN reports is posted here.
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