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This is a list of the brightest natural objects in the sky. This list orders objects by apparent magnitude from Earth , not anywhere else . This list is with reference to naked eye viewing; all objects are listed by their visual magnitudes, and objects too close together to be distinguished are listed jointly.
GRB 080319B was a gamma-ray burst (GRB) detected by the Swift satellite at 06:12 UTC on March 19, 2008. The burst set a new record for the farthest object that was observable with the naked eye: [2] it had a peak visual apparent magnitude of 5.7 and remained visible to human eyes for approximately 30 seconds. [3]
It was the first quasar ever to be identified and is the visually brightest quasar in the sky as seen from Earth, with an apparent visual magnitude of 12.9. [2] The derived distance to this object is 749 megaparsecs (2.4 billion light-years). The mass of its central supermassive black hole is approximately 886 million times the mass of the Sun.
It also had the brightest UVOT afterglow ever recorded once corrected for extinction. [46] It had the largest amount of energy ever recorded in the TeV range, [47] and had the most energetic photons ever recorded for a GRB, peaking at 18 TeV. [25] [20] The burst was ten times brighter than any previous GRB detected by the Swift mission. [48]
It has an average apparent magnitude of 12.8 (bright enough to be seen through a medium-size amateur telescope), but it has an absolute magnitude of −26.7. [50] From a distance of about 33 light-years, this object would shine in the sky about as brightly as the Sun .
Today, Venus is referred to as the "Christmas Star" because it will be the brightest object in the sky, besides the moon and sun, Throop said. PHOTO: Starry sky (Picture Alliance/DPA via Getty Images)
After traveling for 1.9 billion years to reach Earth—oddly enough, making it one of closest GRBs of its type ever seen—the BOAT functionally blinded most of our space-based gamma ray detectors.
It was first detected on June 14, 2015, located within a faint galaxy in the southern constellation Indus, and was the most luminous supernova-like object ever observed. [4] At its peak, ASASSN-15lh was 570 billion times brighter than the Sun, and 20 times brighter than the combined light emitted by the Milky Way Galaxy . [ 4 ]