NASA’s Swift satellite detected the farthest burst of light visible to the naked eye on March 19. The gamma ray explosion was probably caused by a massive star that ran out of nuclear fuel. When this phenomena occur, the core of the stars collapse and form what is known as ‘black holes’ or neutron starts, while at the same time, they release an enormous amount of high-energy gamma rays at unimaginable speeds and forces.

But the reaction doesn’t stop to this initial burst of light, scientists say. When the gamma rays reach nearby interstellar clouds, they often generate afterglows, due to the fact that the particles released from the gamma ray explosion heat the gas in these clouds. These are considered to be the brightest explosions in the entire Universe.

The burst of light that has been observed by Swift’s Burst Alert Telescope on March 19 at 2:12 a.m. EDT was the brightest to date and was located in the constellation Boötes. “This burst was a whopper,” said Swift principal investigator Neil Gehrels of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. in a statement. “It blows away every gamma ray burst we’ve seen so far.”

“No other known object of type of explosion could be seen by the naked eye at such an immense distance,” said Stephen Holland, Swift scientist research member at Goddard. “If someone just happened to be looking at the right place at the right time, they saw the most distant object ever seen by human eyes without optical aid.”

The burts was named by the team of scientists GRB 080319B and according to the same team, the optical afterglow was 2.5 million times more luminous than the most luminous supernova ever recorded. GRB 080319B is just one of the four such observations made by Swift that day. There are still many things scientists need to establish on what could have caused the burst to be so bright, including the afterglow.

Image credits: NASA