Two days ago astronomers from the Swift X-ray space telescope observed a spectacular supernova, believed to be by far the most intense ever recorded. It was even visible to the naked eye-see article here. Since the collapsing star itself was located at an estimated 7.5 billion light-years away from Earth, this makes it the most intrinsically bright stellar object ever observed. Scientists are still speculating on why such a distant supernova turned out to be so luminous as seen from Earth. If the explosion had occurred within our Milky Way galaxy, it would have been brighter than the sun for almost an entire minute-on the same day that Arthur C. Clarke passed away!
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