A burst of x-rays that temporarily blinded a NASA satellite last month was the most powerful blast ever recorded, leaving astronomers mystified about its origin.
The Swift x-ray observatory, which tracks gamma-ray bursts, was so overwhelmed by the 21 June event that computer analysis of data collected during the burst discarded the information as junk.
It wasn't until a research assistant, who was returning from vacation, went back to look at the data dropout that scientists had an inkling of what happened.
"We actually didn't realise at first how bright the x-ray emission was," says Swift lead researcher Dr Neil Gehrels at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.
"If someone had asked me before Swift launched how bright these x-ray afterglows of gamma ray bursts would be, I'd never have guessed it'd be this bright," Gehrels says. "It really knocked our socks off."
The burst was about 200 times brighter than astronomers' benchmark for x-ray radiation, the supernova remnant known as the Crab Nebula, and it stemmed from a galaxy about 5 million light-years away.
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