The biggest ever space explosion has occurred – what do you mean you don’t care? | Rhiannon Neads

It happened 8 billion lightyears away and was unprecedentedly bright and powerful. And I for one am pretty excited about it

Something pretty huge happened in space recently. Well, that's not strictly true - to be more accurate, something truly gargantuan happened in space approximately 8 billion years ago, that we are only just finding out about now. Last Friday, scientists revealed the largest cosmic explosion ever witnessed: like a supernova, but more than 10 times brighter and more powerful than any other seen before. And its cause? A giant cloud of gas being sucked into a supermassive black hole.

If you want people to be excited about something, it's important to come up with a catchy name. So, taking a leaf out of Elon Musk's book of baby names, scientists called it AT2021lwx. But I'm gonna call her Sue. Sue Pernova. (You're welcome.)