Brightest cosmic explosion of all time: how we may have solved the mystery of its puzzling persistence

An x-ray of the brightest ever gamma ray burst reflected off dust layers, creating extended 'light echoes' of the initial blast. Nasa

First detected accidentally by US military satellites in the late 1960s, cosmic explosions known as gamma ray bursts (GRBs) have come to be understood as the brightest explosions in the universe.

Typically, they are the result of the cataclysmic birth of a black hole in a distant galaxy. One way this can happen is through the collapse of a single, massive star.