Biggest cosmic explosion on record since the Big Bang is revealing the secrets of gamma-ray bursts
https://www.space.com/astronomy/biggest-cosmic-explosion-on-record-since-the-big-bang-is-revealing-the-secrets-of-gamma-ray-bursts
Biggest cosmic explosion on record since the Big Bang is revealing the secrets of gamma-ray bursts
https://www.space.com/astronomy/biggest-cosmic-explosion-on-record-since-the-big-bang-is-revealing-the-secrets-of-gamma-ray-bursts
4 Comments
Wow I didn’t realize we had the Big Bang on record!
I’m guessing it’s not really the brightest explosion since the Big Bang. It could be the brightest type of explosion, but it’s “just” the birth of a black hole, and we know there are a lot of black holes in the universe. Even if this one is the closest to the limit we’ve seen, there was probably another one even closer to the limit.
It’s always a dumb idea to name something the “biggest”, “largest”, “fastest”, “slowest”, etc of all time because now what do you name the next thing that is bigger, larger, faster, slower, etc. That day *will* come and the next guy trying to name theirs is going to be pissed and your going to be embarrassed.
Astronomer here! This is in reference to [GRB 221009A](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GRB_221009A), which was detected in 2022 and nicknamed the BOAT (“Brightest of All Time”). It was a [gamma-ray burst](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma-ray_burst) that was “only” 2.4 billion light years away from us, which sounds very far but is actually so close for a GRB that we think it was a 1/10,000 years event!
This means it was exceptionally well studied (it’s the only GRB I’ve ever worked on, it was an all hands on deck situation and my collaborators needed me to trigger a telescope!), and new data and papers are *still* coming out about it as a result! Very cool event for sure. 🙂