Bored, so here's an idea I've been fiddling with... The Universe, "big Bang" and...

[BYoNexus]

[BYoNexus]

aww, they show as broken image links

[Pix]

Thought you might find this of interest:

http://news.yahoo.com/monster-cosmic-bla...49814.html

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.

The only bigger display astronomers know of was the Big Bang — and no one, of course, was around to witness that.

"This burst was a once-in-a-century cosmic event," NASA astrophysics chief Paul Hertz said at a news conference Thursday.

But because this blast was 3.7 billion light-years away, mankind was spared. In fact, no one on Earth could even see it with the naked eye.

A gamma ray burst happens when a massive star dies, collapses into a brand-new black hole, explodes in what's called a supernova and ejects energetic radiation. The radiation is as bright as can be as it travels across the universe at the speed of light.

A planet caught in one of these bursts would lose its atmosphere instantly and would be left a burnt cinder, astronomers say.