VIDEO: Spectacular Animation Of Biggest Bang Ever Seen

NASA writes that ‘this animation shows the most common type of gamma-ray burst, thought to occur when a massive star collapses, forms a black hole, and blasts particle jets outward at nearly the speed of light.’

Caught by orbiting telescopes last spring, the gamma ray burst in a galaxy 3.7 billion light-years away was “a once-in-a-century cosmic event,” NASA astrophysics chief Paul Hertz said Thursday.

Those bursts, the space agency writes:

“Are the most luminous explosions in the cosmos, thought to be triggered when the core of a massive star runs out of nuclear fuel, collapses under its own weight, and forms a black hole. The black hole then drives jets of particles that drill all the way through the collapsing star and erupt into space at nearly the speed of light.”

Now NASA has produced a video to help us all get a sense of what that big bang might have looked like.