NASA | Swift Finds Most Distant Gamma-ray Burst Yet

On April 29, 2009, a five-second-long burst of gamma rays from the constellation Canes Venatici triggered the Burst Alert Telescope on NASA's Swift satellite. As with most gamma-ray bursts, this one -- now designated GRB 090429B -- heralded the death of a star some 30 times the sun's mass and the likely birth of a new black hole.
"What's important about this event isn't so much the 'what' but the 'where,'" said Neil Gehrels, lead scientist for Swift at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "GRB 090429B exploded at the cosmic frontier, among some of the earliest stars to form in our universe."
Because light moves at finite speed, looking farther into the universe means looking back in time. GRB 090429B gives astronomers a glimpse of the universe as it appeared some 520 million years after the universe began.
Now, after two years of painstaking analysis, astronomers studying the afterglow of the explosion say they're confident that the blast was the farthest explosion yet identified -- and at a distance of 13.14 billion light-years, a contender for the most distant object now known.
Swift's discoveries continue to push the cosmic frontier deeper back in time. A gamma-ray burst detected on Sept. 4, 2005, was shown to be lie 12.77 billion light-years away. Until the new study dethroned it, GRB 090423, which was detected just six days before the current record-holder, reigned a distance of about 13.04 billion light-years. All of these gamma-ray bursts were among the first 500 detected by Swift.


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[AnotherPostcard]

@bftjosh Lol thanks but I think I just made a typo. It's interesting how the Earth theorized age is almost exactly 10 billion years after the universe though. Never thought about that. lol

[swiessin]

@lighttowers The pink spots are just an animation to represent a gamma-ray burst, they aren't real images. The galaxy in the back is actually the Milky Way. The image is the Two Micron All-Sky Survey (2MASS) infrared survey and it's the view from Earth. The oval is an all-sky projection, so it's the entire sphere of the sky flattened out, kind of like a Mercator projection is the sphere of the Earth flattened. Check the first link in the video's description for the 2MASS image etc.

[AnotherPostcard]

@NizzBomb69 Structures did exist back then. The theorized age of the universe is 3.75 billion years ago. This gamma ray burst came from ~700 million years after the big bang. :)

[MoonDragon]

@marinohell Actually, our sun is too small to go supernova and create a gamma-ray burst. But it would be a nice thought :)

[BF]

3-19-08 GRB visible to the unaided eye from 7.5 billion ly away. Mind boggling, the earth wasnt even formed yet when that sucker shot off.

[BahoUtot]

Aww, poor little satellite couldn't keep up with the flashes.

[Hirome_Satou]

@AnotherPostcard Actually, the theorized age of the Universe is closer to 14 Billion years and increases with every star they find that's even farther away, the theorized age of Earth is around 3.75 Billion years ಠ_ರೃ

[Shaunt]

This is awesome, how lucky are we that we haven't been hit by one yet?

[lighttowers]

th pink spots- are these the gamma rays or is this just a video trick? The galaxy in the back.. is that Amdromeda? No spacecraft can make an image of the entire Milky Way from a position within.

[lighttowers]

@lighttowers >
So noone knows how strong that Gamma ray burst really was , nor regarded other forms of (anti-) energy might be emmitted with such a supernova beside the measurable light rays. The strong disturbance on the geomagnetic field on May 28 is so far not explained, as there were no signif. flares the days before . The many (18) flares those occured on the Sun on 28 and 29 incl. 2 CMEs would need appr 2, 9 days to Earth with the sun wind speed of 600km/s and cant have been the cause.

[ChazZen]

hey NASAexplorer, if u r reading these comments, can u make a video about the new MPCV that nasa is making to launch men out into deep space?

[truvelocity]

@NizzBomb69 I lived close enough to the Planetarium to go on field trips and explore knowledge about our galaxy, universe and stars at 6 years of age. I was taught that the known universe is about 14 billion years old and that stars existed for about as long. I guess I was lucky in that way to learn this stuff so young. Most people don't have that kind of an education and either ask questions to humbly learn or become incredulous, because they are easily lead into conspiracy theories.

[LordOfNothingham]

Ahhh I remember my days on a planet orbiting GB090429B. I think it was called Traxari 5, or was it Traxari 6, eh makes no difference I guess, that was 4.3 million years ago.

[lighttowers]

@swiessin thanks!. Spacecraft may be able to make a more complete image of the Milky Way: Due to recent SDO images, most active regions on the Sun(>Sun cycle) seem to form out on two opposite longitudes on the Sun. Also most CME hit Earth this year during summer soltice, less at winter s. I`d like find out whether these regions are on the "soltice axis" what means (currently)n the line between Gemini and Sagittarius with SIRIUS pulling on the one side and the calactic center on the other.

[NizzBomb]

I don't understand how light can start traveling 13.4 billion years ago when structures including stars didn't even exist back
someone explain this to me

[lighttowers]

Unfortunately, NASA people are permanently on the moon or elsewhere, where they therefore never have time to answer public questions. MIne would be: there was a sudden rise of "planetary A value" to 40 registered on April 29 and 29. Typical disturbances occured at one TV channel ( ZDF) in Germany, which sends on a certain frequency or whatever to interact with those geomagnetical storms. ( transmission went back to normal late at night on 28 and disturbance set in again early morning on 29

[joeb]

as great as these pictures are I wish that NASA would join the ufo community of true believers and give us some really awesome kick ass photos of deep space star ships, crafts, alien bases on alien moons and planets, niberu some good and awesome stuff.