It was detected by space-based Fermi and Swift telescopes, with support from the Earth-based High Energy Stereoscopic System (H.E.S.S) telescope in Namibia. This was a massive gamma-ray burst, made up of a combination of bright X-ray and gamma-ray flashes observed in the sky, emitted by distant extragalactic sources. The explosive event was the death of a star and the start of its transformation into a black hole, according to experts from the German Electron Synchrotron in Hamburg. Last year, a massive gamma-ray blast more than a billion light-years from Earth was revealed to be the largest explosion in the Universe ever detected and recorded by astronomers. Located in the high-altitude Atacama Desert in Chile, the ALMA array comprises 66 radio telescopes, making it the largest radio telescope in the worldįong said: 'After many years observing these bursts, this surprising discovery opens up a new area of study, as it motivates us to observe many more of these with ALMA and other telescope arrays in the future.' 'That, in turn, means that this short-duration gamma-ray burst is even more powerful than we first thought, making it one of the most luminous and energetic on record.' Laskar added: 'ALMA's unparalleled sensitivity allowed us to pinpoint the location of the GRB in that field with more precision, and it turned out to be in another faint galaxy, which is further away. Located in the high-altitude Atacama Desert in Chile, the ALMA array comprises 66 radio telescopes, making it the largest radio telescope in the world. 'Before ALMA, millimeter telescopes were not sensitive enough to detect these afterglows.' 'These explosions take place in distant galaxies which means the light from them can be quite faint for our telescopes on Earth,' said astrophysicist Tanmoy Laskar, of Radboud University in the Netherlands. They are also important because it is in explosions like these that elements heavier than iron are forged and ejected throughout space. Short GRBs last a second and are usually produced when two neutron stars merge. Long GRBs last about a minute, and scientists think they are produced by supernovae: when the core of a massive star collapses to become a black hole. In just 10 seconds, they can emit more energy than a star the size of our sun gives off in 10 billion years. Gamma-ray bursts are the most powerful known explosions in the Universe.

'Afterglows for short bursts are very difficult to come by, so it was spectacular to catch this event shining so brightly. 'This short gamma-ray burst was the first time we tried to observe such an event with ALMA,' said Northwestern's Wen-fai Fong, principal investigator of the ALMA program.

Nuclear time lapse video