More Than One Source?
The growing variety of data on gamma ray bursts has led to speculation that maybe they
represent a family of events having more than one source. One unifying
idea is that all the theories proposed in the left frame are likely to lead to spinning black holes
(merging neutron stars will probably lead to a spinning object with a mass above the critical value
that will collapse to a black hole).
Thus, it has been suggested that gamma ray bursts are generally
associated with a collapse of large amounts of spinning mass to a black hole, but that there are several
mechanisms to cause this and each leads to a burst with its own characteristics.