Discoveries using the telescopes on Mauna Kea

[TomK]

A distant burst of gamma rays from a galaxy may not be what it seemed at first. Back in late 2020 astronomers using the Keck Observatory on Mauna Kea reported detecting a powerful gamma-ray bust from from a very distant and young galaxy called GN-z11. However, recent data suggest it was nothing more than a glint of light from a large piece of space debris, the upper stage of a Russian Proton Rocket, that had become space junk.

"Around the time that the original team was studying the sky, a Russian proton rocket reached low Earth orbit and released its upper stages (dubbed Breeze-M), which then became space junk, orbiting the Earth. By looking at the orbit of the space debris and matching with the observations taken in the original study, the new team found the flash could be simply explained by the upper stage falling past the part of the sky the telescope was observing."

https://ca.movies.yahoo.com/movies/energ...51592.html
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-021-01472-3

I don't think we're at the stage of confirming either version right now, but if memory serves, I don't think any follow-up observations of the gamma-ray burst ever confirmed its existence. In any case, this is a good example of how science works - you need to test any observation and follow things up with corroborating evidence. It's also an example of how space junk is becoming an increasing problem.