Today’s Astronomy Picture of the Day points to a mind-boggling cosmological event clear across the universe. “Last March, telescopic instruments in Earth and space tracked a tremendous explosion that occurred across the universe. A nearly

unprecedented symphony of international observations began abruptly on 2000 March 1 when Earth-orbiting RXTE, Sun-orbiting Ulysses, and

asteroid-orbiting NEAR all detected a 10-second burst of high-frequency gamma radiation. … Major telescopes across the globe soon began playing along as GRB 000301C came into view, detailing unusual behavior. The Hubble

Space Telescope captured the above image and was the first to obtain an accurate distance to the explosion, placing it near redshift 2, most of the way

across the visible universe… Even today, no one is sure what type of explosion

this was. Unusual features of the light curve are still being studied, and no host galaxy appears near the position of this explosion.”

David Anderson at Metaforage wrote me that a source of his at NASA says the explosion has finally been identified. It was Trent Lott’s reaction to the news that Jim Jeffords was leaving the G.O.P.