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‘Monster’ cosmic blast zipped harmlessly by Earth

By Seth Borenstein
Published November 21, 2013 9:12pm ET
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‘Monster’ cosmic blast zipped harmlessly by Earth
This image provided by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center shows an artists rendering on how a gamma ray burst occurs with a massive star collapsing and creating a black hole and beaming out focused and deadly light and radiation bursts. Astronomers and space telescopes in April 2013 saw the biggest and brightest cosmic explosion ever witnessed, a large gamma ray burst. (AP Photo/NASA Goddard Space Flight Center) | ap

WASHINGTON (AP) — Astronomers call it the monster. It was the biggest and brightest cosmic explosion ever witnessed. Had it been closer, Earth would have been toast.

Orbiting telescopes got the fireworks show of a lifetime last spring when they spotted what is known as a gamma ray burst in a far-off galaxy.

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