http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/06/opinion/urry-gamma-ray-burst/index.html
May 6, 2013 - CNN.com
On April 27, NASA's Fermi and Swift satellites detected a strong signal
from the brightest gamma-ray burst in decades. Because this was
relatively close, it was thousands of times brighter than the typical
gamma-ray bursts that are seen by Swift every few days. Scientists are
now scrambling to learn more.
...
Thanks to observations made with the Gemini ground-based optical
telescope in Hawaii, it quickly became clear that GRB130427A was
superbright primarily because it lay only a few billion light years
away. Had it been situated in a much more distant galaxy -- as many
gamma-ray bursts are -- its signal would have been relatively feeble.
...