Larger telescopes too captured the burster's optical counterpart and at right is an image identifying the candidate from the 60 inch Palomar reflector . At left is a prior sky survey image of the region which astonishingly shows a discernible smudge near the same position, likely the burster's host galaxy. Still, believed to be the most powerful explosions in the Universe, the source of the incredible energy of gamma-ray bursts remains a mystery. Reported redshift measurements now suggest that the burst is instead a very distant one. The galaxy in the survey image may not be the gamma-ray burst host but a foreground galaxy which by chance lies along the line of sight from Earth to the burster.
Specific rights apply .