Brightest light in space ever "caught on camera"
- Published
The artist's impression shows the explosion, which is the brightest seen to date
Did you know light is "energetic"?
Well, some scientists have captured the "most energetic" form of light ever seen.
Two distant, but super powerful, cosmic explosions known as 'gamma-ray bursts' were detected by Nasa scientists at University College London, using the space telescope on board Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory.
Gamma-ray bursts, or cosmic bangs, are one of the most powerful explosions of energy in the universe.
The two explosions took place in galaxies billions of light-years away.
The second of the bursts, which was captured in January, produced light containing about 100 billion times as much energy as light visible to the human eye.
Gamma-ray bursts happen almost every day, without warning, and these scientists only had a few seconds to catch it!
Just 50 seconds after satellites spotted the January explosion, telescopes on Earth swivelled to catch a flood of thousands of particles of light.
"Gamma-ray bursts are the most powerful explosions known in the universe and typically release more energy in just a few seconds than our sun during its entire lifetime," David Berge, a gamma-ray scientists said. "They can shine through almost the entire visible universe."
- Published17 December 2014
