NASA satellite detects record gamma ray burst

NASA Satellite Detects Record Gamma Ray Burst Explosion Halfway Across The Universe

Something, somewhere, out there has gone off with one ultra-super-awesomely mega-ginormous bang. On March 19th, NASA's "Swift" satellite, dedicated to the study of gamma-ray bursts from the depths of the Universe, detected by far the biggest gamma-ray explosion ever recorded.


Despite being a vast 7.5 billion light-years distant (and hence occurring at a time when the Universe was only about half its present age), it would have been visible with the naked eye to someone who happened to be looking in that direction in a dark, clear sky. Astronomers are now racking their brains to figure out what might have caused it.

Funny old place, the Universe.

Supernova?

Cosmic inflation

@Eurovol: Supernova? - well as it says in the bit I quoted: "2.5 million times more luminous than the most luminous supernova ever recorded". Even an ordinary everyday common-or-garden supernova is an ultra-super-awesome explosion, so this one must have been super-awesome to the power of super-awesome.

Or I wonder if it could have been just an average super-awesome supernova magnified by a gravitational lens?

This is the photo of it:

The Hubble Space Telescope took a peek at the aftermath on April 7th: Hubble Pinpoints Record-Breaking Explosion




Wow!

According to your Hubble link Green Tea, it says it was a "hypernova"

Yeah, there's definitely a subset of astronomers who like the prefix "hyper" for really big events.

Neato, GreenTea, thanks for the link!

The Incredible Hulk?

Update hot off the press: Brightest gamma-ray burst provides wealth of information on how stars explode