"Unraveling the Origins of the Most Powerful Cosmic Explosions"

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope captured the most powerful space explosion ever seen, nicknamed the BOAT, which resulted in the birth of a black hole. The event, the biggest burst of gamma radiation ever recorded, was initially thought to be unusually bright, but new research suggests it was not any brighter than previous supernovae. Despite hopes of finding evidence of the supernova producing heavy elements like platinum and gold, no such evidence was found, leaving the origin of these elements still a mystery. The study has been published in the journal Nature Astronomy, and future observations with the James Webb Space Telescope will further explore the production of heavy elements by similar events.