From insane supermassive black holes to the destructive Big Bang these are the 11 biggest and brightest explosions in the universe. Learn about the BIGGEST of everything Monday, Wednesday, and Friday just subscribe! # 8 Farthest Recorded Explosion Gamma Ray Bursts have the capacity to be very powerful, and this burst known as GRB 090423 is one of those very powerful bursts. Although it was pretty short as far as gamma ray bursts go, only lasting about 1 second when they usually last around 20, it released an insane amount of energy. In just that 1 second burst, it released around 100 times more energy than our sun could ever release in its entire lifetime. It makes sense that this burst came from a star that is somewhere between 30 to 100 times larger than our sun. # 7 SN 2006gy SN 2006gy was a supernova with an extremely high amount of energy, so much of it that it’s sometimes referred to as a hypernova or a quark-nova. The SN 2006gy explosion occurred about 238 million light years away from us. The explosion triggered by this hypernova was so big the amount of energy it put out by its explosion was equivalent to the energy put out by all the stars in the Virgo Supercluster in one minute. # 6 Theia Impact There is a theory known as the giant-impact hypothesis or Big Splash, that suggests our moon only formed after a massive collision between Earth and another heavenly body the size of Mars, approximately 4.5 billion years ago. The impact between that body, what many people refer to as Theia, and Earth would have created a pretty large explosion. The debris created from this impact would have orbited our planet until they eventually coalesced into our singular moon. The impact and explosion would have also been strong enough to turn our planet’s surface into molten lava. # 5 Antimatter Explosion Late into 2009, we witnessed a huge explosion, one of the biggest ever recorded. It happened in the Virgo constellation inside a star that was 200 times more massive than our own Sun. When it neared the end of its life, its oxygen core created pairs of electrons and the antimatter opposite, positrons. When these came into contact with each other, they annihilate each other. This antimatter reaction caused the sun to collapse and ignites its oxygen core creating a huge nuclear explosion. It’s basically an atomic bomb that’s hundreds of times bigger than our sun. # 4 ASASSN-15lh In January of 2016, a team of astronomers called All-Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae discovered what may have been the brightest supernova explosion we’ve seen yet. This explosion was triggered 3.8 billion light years away. The explosion, which was named ASASSN-15lh after the group that observed it, had so much force it was briefly 600 billion times brighter than our Sun and 20 times brighter than all of the stars in our Milky Way combined. ASASSN-15lh burned so bright and hot it actually defies a lot of beliefs we have about the way the universe works. # 3 Extremely Bright Gamma-Ray Burst (GRB 130472A) Back in April of 2013 astronomers spotted a brilliant blast of gamma radiation near the constellation of Leo. It was one of the most powerful gamma-ray bursts ever observed by our satellites. Gamma-ray bursts are the most powerful explosions in the universe. These bursts are always followed by the death of a massive star, a supernova explosion. While it looks like a tiny speck through our telescopes, this bright light was the combination of a supernova explosion and a gamma ray burst from 3.6 billion light years away. If an explosion like that happened anywhere near Earth, we’d all be space dust. # 2 Supermassive Black Hole In a galaxy approximately 2.6 billion light years away from Earth, there was an explosion so big it is only rivaled by the Big Bang. The galaxy located in the Camelopardalis constellation is being torn apart by a supermassive black hole that swallowed mass equivalent to 300 million suns and then belched it all back out. This created a massive explosion, shooting out hot gas at supersonic speed and creating a cloud that is at least one million light years across. This explosion is so massive it has lasted for more than 100 million years. This “second big bang” could be creating whole new universes with entirely different rules of reality. # 1 The Big Bang The Big Bang has to be on our list as the biggest explosion ever. Although the Big Bang isn’t exactly classified as an “explosion”. An explosion involves the movement of matter through space, while the Big Bang was the expansion of space itself. Still, it is called the Big Bang for a reason. The rapid expansion of space from the center of the universe is a pretty big event, and since our universe is still expanding to this day, you could say the Big Bang is still happening. Making it one of the longest and biggest explosions in the history of our universe.
Visibility: 44243
Duration: 7m 43s
Rating: 258