It’s Fun to Know: The Brightest Light in the Universe

The brightest light in the universe isn’t some star billions of light years away. Nor is it any other astronomical phenomenon. The "Brightest Light" title belongs to the world’s most powerful laser, created by physicists at the University of Texas.

The laser generates 1 petawatt (1 million billion watts) of power, which is more than all the power plants in the world combined. That level of power, and the resulting brightest light ever recorded in the universe, is sustained only for trillionths of a second.

The laser is being used to study the intense conditions of stars.