Astronomers have examined data about 700 short gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) detected with NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, and Compton Gamma Ray Observatory. They have found flickering gamma-ray patterns — called quasiperiodic oscillations — in two short GRBs indicating the brief existence of a superheavy neutron star shortly before it collapsed into a black hole. A neutron star (blue sphere) spins in...