Astronomers have spotted a cosmic blast that dwarfs all others. The explosion occurred in the Ophiuchus cluster, which lies about 390 million light-years from Earth. The energy released by the Ophiuchus blast is hundreds of thousands of times greater than explosions typically seen in galaxy clusters, the researchers said. And it’s about five times higher than the previous record holder, an eruption in the cluster MS 0735.6+7421. In some ways, this blast is similar to how the eruption of Mt. St. Helens in 1980 ripped off the top of the mountain. A key difference is that you could fit 15 Milky Way galaxies in a row into the crater this eruption punched into the cluster’s hot gas.
— source scientificamerican.com | Feb 29, 2020
