Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin The most powerful class of explosions in the universe—a gamma-ray burst—reached the solar system on Sunday, Oct. 9, 2022. It was 70 times brighter than any yet seen. A telescope on the International Space Station sensed it. So did NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope and scores of satellites. It was even detected by the Voyager 1 probe now in interstellar space. The subject of a special edition of The Astrophysical Journal Letters this week, this pulse of intense radiation has been called the “BOAT”—the brightest of all time—but what was it? “GRB 221009A was likely the brightest burst at X-ray and gamma-ray energies to occur since human civilization began,” said Eric Burns, LSU Department of Physics and Astronomy assistant professor. He led research into about 7,000 gamma-ray bursts and concluded that events like GRB 221009A occur roughly once in every 10,000 years. Gamma-ray bursts are thought to … [Read more...] about Giant Cosmic Explosion May Be Biggest Since Human Civilization Began, Say Scientists