Telescope spies cataclysmic blast

THE FERMI MISSION Spacecraft was launched in June 2008 on a five-year mission It is looking at the Universe in the highest-energy form of light Fermi is 2.8m (9.2ft) high and 2.4m (8.2ft) in diameter The spacecraft orbits at an altitude of 565km (350 miles) It could pick up about 200 cosmic explosions each year Mission is a team-up between Nasa and US Department of Energy

Astronomers have recorded the most powerful radiation blast from deep space yet detected.

The event was observed by Nasa's recently launched Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope and reported in the online journal Science Express.

The source of the blast is assumed to be the catastrophic implosion of a star, to create a black hole.

Scientists say the spectacle's energy release was equivalent to thousands of ordinary exploding stars.

"This is the most spectacular burst ever seen at high energy," said Dr Valerie Connaughton, a scientist from the University of Alabama, Huntsville, and a member of Fermi's Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM) instrument team.

"If the event that caused this blew out in every direction instead of being a focused beam, it would be equivalent to 4.9 times the mass of the Sun being converted to gamma rays in a matter of minutes."

The unprecedented event should help researchers better understand the causes of such phenomena.