A star which was about halfway across the universe from our Earth exploded with such an amazingly tremendous ferocity that the light from the explosion traversed over billions of light years to reach our planet with enough brightness that it could be have easily been seen by the naked eye.
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This explosion which lasted less than an hour has set the record for the farthest object from Earth visible to the naked eye.
Astronomers say that the exploding star was approximately 50 times the size of our Sun and was as far as 7.5 billion light years away from Earth.
The star exploded when the Universe was half as old as it is now, yet its light reached us only as late as Wednesday.
This gives us an idea of the magnitude of this incredible phenomenon. The brightness with which the explosion was viewable is truly amazing and even more so is the distance traversed by it.
The gamma radiation from the star was detected by NASA’S Swift satellite but NASA says that the explosion was bright enough to be seen by the naked eye.
As believed by the NASA, there have so far been no reports of any sky watcher having seen the explosion by the naked eye.
NASA astronomers have however said that if anyone did see it, the explosion would have been as bright as some of the stars in the handle of The Little Dipper Constellation.
The ageing star belonged to a formerly unidentified galaxy. It was approximately 7.5 billion light years away or in simple terms; the distance between the Earth and the star was 45000000000000000000000 miles or basically, it was halfway towards the end of the universe.
This incredible distance traveled by the light and the truly spectacular brightness and clarity with which the explosion could be seen speaks volumes of the colossal explosion and its impact on the universe.
Astronomers say that the explosion was so gigantic and powerful that it would have completely obliterated any other celestial body that was unlucky enough to be in its vicinity.
something in the night sky
I saw something like this just a few nights ago. I was at a beach and was watching the stars. Then, without even a sound, I saw a very big bright bluish white light in the night sky. it was huge, but only lasted for a few seconds and was huge! it didnt make a sound.
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