Far-Sighted: Telescope Snaps Most Distant Object

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Far-Sighted: Telescope Snaps Most Distant Object
Topic Started: Apr 28 2009, 05:11 AM (77 Views)
XNavyGunner	Apr 28 2009, 05:11 AM Post #1
Gunner Posts: 11,186 Group: Global Moderators Member #89 Joined: Sep 5 2006 Gender Male	Astronomers tracking a mysterious blast of energy called a gamma ray burst said on Tuesday they had snapped a photograph of the most distant object in the universe -- a smudge 13 billion light-years away. Hawaii's Gemini Observatory caught the image earlier this month after a satellite first detected the burst. "Our infrared observations from Gemini immediately suggested that this was an unusually distant burst, these images were the smoking gun," said Edo Berger of the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Distortions in the light signature of the object show it is 13 billion years old -- at the speed of light, 13 billion light-years away. A light-year is 6 trillion miles (10 trillion km). This makes it easily the most distant object ever seen by humanity, Berger said. Gamma-ray bursts are luminous explosions that mostly occur when massive stars run out of fuel and begin collapsing into either a black hole or a neutron star. "I have been chasing gamma-ray bursts for a decade, trying to find such a spectacular event," said Berger. "We now have the first direct proof that the young universe was teeming with exploding stars and newly-born black holes only a few hundred million years after the Big Bang," he said. Source



StrmySummer	Apr 28 2009, 03:28 PM Post #2
Storm Goddess Posts: 5,422 Group: Forum Reporter Member #43 Joined: Jul 10 2006 Gender Female	omg......that's beautiful!
	"Beginning now, let's play more, kiss more, love more, let's be so close that when one of us cries, the other tastes salt." "Finish, good lady; the bright day is done, and we are for the dark." - Shakespeare


Carcharoth	Apr 29 2009, 11:03 AM Post #3
Black Coffee ist Krieg Posts: 807 Group: GFX Staff Member #3,229 Joined: Sep 9 2008 Gender Male	13 Billion light years away... an incredible amount of time compared to our age as a race. Stuff like this makes me remember all those wonders out there



hunter207	May 3 2009, 04:29 PM Post #4
Boss Posts: 367 Group: Members Member #3,288 Joined: Feb 1 2009 Gender Male	And people wander why I want to build the Starship Enterprise! Sheesh...



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