esahubble_opo9909b March 11th, 1999
Credit: Andrew Fruchter (STScI) and NASA/ESA
A NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope view of the rapidly fading visible-light fireball from the most powerful cosmic explosion recorded to date. For a brief moment the light from the blast was equal to the radiance of 100 million billion stars. The initial explosion began as an intense burst of gamma-rays which happened on Jan. 23, 1999. The blast had already faded to one four-millionth of its original brightness when Hubble made observations on February 8 and 9. Space Telescope captured the fading fireball embedded in a galaxy located 2/3 of the way to the horizon of the observable universe.
Provider: Hubble Space Telescope | ESA
Image Source: https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/opo9909b/
Curator: ESA/Hubble, Garching bei München, Germany
Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
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