Fact Sheet
Boom!
An artist's concept shows the first moment of a gamma-ray burst -- one of the most powerful events in the universe. "Jets" of gamma rays punch into space from the poles of a star that is just beginning to explode as a supernova. If Earth lines up along one of the jets, we see the explosion as a gamma-ray burst. In just a few seconds, it produces more energy than the Sun will produce in its entire 10-billion-year lifetime. [NRAO]
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