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Brightest light ever seen by astronomers

The Daily Telegraph: The brightest burst of light ever seen - which peaked at a few hundred million billion times the brightness of our Sun - has been witnessed by the Swift satellite. The 50 second burst was so bright it was visible to the naked eye, even though it was seven thousand times further away than the Andromeda galaxy, in the constellation of Bootes.

Swift typically finds two gamma-ray bursts a week; but for the first time Swift found five bursts within 24 hours. The second burst of the day is the new record holder.

The enormous energy released in the explosion - brighter than the light from all of the stars in five million Milky Way Galaxies - was caused by the death of a massive star which collapsed to form a black hole.

Related links
Movie showing the visible light burst of GRB080319B (Las Campanas Observatory, Chile)
Associated press release related to visible observation (Las Campanas Observatory, Chile)
NASA Satellite Detects Record Gamma Ray Burst Explosion Halfway Across Universe (NASA Press release)
Swift satellite
Gamma-Ray Bursts (Wikipedia)

Posted by Physics Today on March 24, 2008 10:14 AM |

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