Wrinkles

Unusually short but intense "fireballs" in the distant universe might be created by the plucking of invisible cosmic strings—ultradense flaws in space-time—a new study suggests.

Gamma-ray bursts are flashes of the most energetic form of light. The bursts happen about once a day somewhere in the universe, and some are so intense they can be seen even when they originate at the very edges of the observable universe, about 13 billion light years away.