It took billions of years for the light of this cosmic explosion to reach Earth, and now it's offering scientists a rare glimpse of the universe at one of its earliest stages.
A McDonald Observatory telescope in Fort Davis, Texas captured the image of a gamma-ray burst -- the enormous explosion of a star, which took place more than 12 billion years ago, shortly after the Big Bang.
"Gamma-ray bursts are the most powerful explosions in the universe since the Big Bang. These bursts release more energy in 10 seconds than our Earth's sun during its entire expected lifespan of 10 billion years," said Farley Ferrante, a graduate student at Southern Methodist University's Department of Physics, who monitored the explosion along with two astronomers in Turkey and Hawaii.
The phenomenon is not well understood by astronomers, but it is believed to be the result of a catastrophic collapse of a star at the end of its life.
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