Bright explosion visible from Earth, NASA say Photo: YouTube
(Newswire.net — August 2, 2017) — The explosion was caused by the death of a massive star, and this event made it possible to create the clearest picture of gamma ray bursts (GRBs), something that has been fascinating astronomers for decades, ever since their discovery in the early sixties of the last century.
Such an explosion occurs when a massive star becomes unstable because it cannot produce enough energy to resist its own mass. Because of that, the star experiences a collapse under the influence of the force of its own gravity and becomes a neutron star or a black hole.
During this process, powerful jets of gas are released into the universe at the speed of light.
The Universe’s biggest explosion was so strong and bright that it was possible to see it from Earth using an amateur telescope or even a decent pair of binoculars, despite happening ten billion light years away from Earth.
Within just a few seconds, the amount of energy released was equal to the amount that a star releases in a period of 10 billion years.
The length of this phenomenon can last anywhere from a few seconds to one minute.
This time scientists had the opportunity to prepare because in June 2016, before the explosion, robotic telescopes spotted a blast named GRB 160625B. It was so far away, the 13.8 billion-year-old Universe was just 3.8 billion years old at the time.
The only bigger cosmic fireworks display scientists know of is the Big Bang.
According to Carole Mundell, professor of astrophysics at the University of Bath, Somerset, United Kingdom, there was a flash of light and then a 100 second delay before the explosion which gave the scientists enough time to put the telescopes in their proper position and to record the explosion.