Most powerful explosion detected in the universe
- Who
- Ophiuchus cluster supermassive black hole
- What
- 5 x 10⁵⁴ joule(s)
- Where
- Not Applicable
- When
- 27 February 2020
The most powerful explosion detected in the universe measures 5 x 10⁵⁴ Joules and is thought to have been caused by a black hole erupting in the Ophiuchus galaxy cluster, first detected in 2016 using X-ray data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory.
The Ophiuchus cluster is located about 390 million light years from Earth, and the explosion left behind a void 750,000 light years wide, or around 14 times the size of the milky way galaxy.
The explosion was first detected in 2016 as an unusual curved edge in the X-ray image of the galaxy cluster from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. It was thought that the curved edge could be part of the wall of a cavity, or void, that would have been caused by an enormously powerful explosion.
Further investigation using additional X-ray data from ESA's XMM-Newton, and radio data from the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) in Australia and the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) in India, indicates that the explosion was indeed caused by a supermassive black hole erupting.