GRB 190114C (Artist’s Impression)

New observations from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have investigated the nature of the powerful gamma-ray burst GRB 190114C by studying its environment.

Gamma-ray bursts are the most powerful explosions in the Universe. They emit most of their energy in gamma rays, light which is much more energetic than the visible light we can see with our eyes.

Hubble’s observations suggest that this particular burst displayed such powerful emission because the collapsing star was sitting in a very dense environment, right in the middle of a bright galaxy 5 billion light years away.