The record for the most distant object in the Universe is broken regularly, but the record for the object with the largest apparent luminosity has been much more durable, resting with the ultraluminous infrared galaxy IRASF10214+4724 since 1991. But there is a new champion, APM08279+5255, which appears to be ten times more luminous2, adding to the evidence that brilliant but dust-filled galaxies were relatively common in the early Universe.
