Abstract
We interpret the puzzling γ‐ray bursts as emitted by cooling sparks from near the surface of spasmodicallyaccreting, old neutron stars. Their spiky anisotropicradiation is oriented w.r.t. the Galactic disk via interstellaraccretion, whose orbital angular momentum tends to counteralign with the Galactic spin; in this way, largersource numbers in directions of the Galactic disk are compensated by smaller beaming probabilities, resulting in a near‐isotropic arrival distribution, as observed by BATSE. The source distances range between 10 pc and 500 pc. Their radiated energies are of order 1035 erg, corresponding to accreted clumps (blades) of typical mass 1015 g per burst. Magnetic surface field strengths range between 1010 G and 1013 G, perhaps somewhat weaker than those of newborn neutron stars. In this communication, we explain why we are still convinced that the soft repeaters have distances ≲50 pc, and how our model can be updated to incorporate the recently observed hard tails (E≲10 GeV for t≲102 s).