The energy of these gamma rays clocked in at 20 tera-electronvolts, or about ten trillion times the energy of visible light.
The international team behind the discovery also found that this type of light, known as gamma rays, is surprisingly bright. That is, there's more of it than scientists had previously anticipated.
Researchers have observed a gamma-ray burst with an afterglow that featured the highest energy photons -- a trillion times more energetic than visible light - ever detected in a burst.
Recent U.S. study suggests how surveys using gamma telescopes could find evidence of spacecraft powered by tiny artificial black holes. The concept of a black hole-powered spacecraft was first introduced by science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke.
For the first time, an international collaboration of scientists has detected highly energetic light coming from the outermost regions of an unusual star system within our own galaxy.