Astronomers say gamma-ray burst may have been result of star collapsing to form black hole
A cosmic explosion that blinded space instruments last year may be the brightest ever seen, according to astronomers.
The cosmic event, known as a gamma-ray burst , produced some of the strongest and brightest explosions in the universe, triggering detectors on multiple spacecraft. Dr Dan Perley, of the Astrophysics Research Institute at Liverpool John Moores University, who followed the event with the university’s Liverpool telescope on the Spanish island of La Palma, said: “There is nothing in human experience that comes anywhere remotely close to such an outpouring of energy. Nothing.”Though they last mere seconds, GRBs produce as much energy as the sun will emit during its entire lifetime.
The explosion blinded most gamma-ray instruments in space, meaning astronomers could not measure the real intensity of the emission, the like of which occurs once every 10,000 years.