New class of cosmic explosion identified  The discovery strongly
suggests a continuum between the two previously known classes of
explosions.  In this week's issue of Nature, astronomers from
the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences
and Caltech outlined in two related papers the discovery of the
explosion.  The explosion was detected Dec. 3, 2003 by the
European-Russian Integral satellite, then observed in detail at
ground-based radio and optical observatories, astronomers said.
The burst, known by its birthdate, GRB031203, appeared in the
constellation Puppis and is about 1.6 billion light-years away,
according to astronomers.  Although the burst was the closest
gamma-ray burst to Earth ever studied - all others have been
several billion light-years away - researchers noticed that the
explosion was extremely faint - releasing only one-thousandth of
the gamma rays of a typical gamma-ray burst.  However, the burst
was also much brighter than supernovae explosions, which led to
the concl