Fermi telescope sees giant gamma-ray burst

WASHINGTON, Feb. 23 (UPI) -- The first gamma-ray burst to be seen in high resolution from the U.S. space agency's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope is the largest such burst ever recorded.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration said the blast had the greatest total energy, the fastest motions and the highest-energy initial emissions ever seen.

Astronomers said gamma-ray bursts are the universe's most luminous explosions, most occurring when massive stars run out of nuclear fuel.

"As a star's core collapses into a black hole, jets of material -- powered by processes not yet fully understood -- blast outward at nearly the speed of light," said NASA. "The jets bore all the way through the collapsing star and continue into space, where they interact with gas previously shed by the star and generate bright afterglows that fade with time."

The large explosion see by Fermi occurred at 7:13 p.m. EDT Sept. 15, in the constellation Carina. Fermi's other instrument, the Gamma-ray Burst Monitor, simultaneously recorded the event, space agency officials said. Together, the two instruments provide a view of the blast's initial, or prompt, gamma-ray emission from energies between 3,000 to more than 5 billion times that of visible light.

The event is reported in the online journal Science Express.