Earlier this year astronomers spied a burst of high-energy gamma rays emanating from the center of a dwarf galaxy 3.8 billion light-years away. The odd flash, dubbed Sw 1644+57, is one is the brightest and longest gamma ray bursts (GRBs) yet seen.

In visible light and infrared wavelengths, the burst is as bright as a hundred billion suns. (Related: "Ultrabright Gamma-ray Burst 'Blinded' NASA Telescope.")

"We believe this explosive event was caused by a supermassive black hole ten million times the mass of the sun shredding a star that got too close to its gravitational pull," said study leader Joshua Bloom, an astronomer at the University of California, Berkeley.

"The mass