SUMMARY: Berto Monard, an amateur astronomer from South Africa was lucky enough to spot the afterglow from a powerful gamma-ray burst - beating professional astronomers to the target. The 40-second-long burst was discovered by NASA's HETE spacecraft, which provided Monard rough coordinates of where to look. He was able to provide the astronomy community with a precise location so they can follow up days or weeks later to try and determine what actually caused the explosion.


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