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Astronomers Detect Most Distant Object Ever Seen

Published October 29, 2009 12:01 AM

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Astronomers say they've detected the most distant object anyone has yet seen from Earth.

Two teams of scientists actually made the discovery, which they report in the current issue of Nature. Nial Tanvir from the University of Leicester in England was one of the teams:

"The thing that we discovered is a gamma ray burst," he says. "It's a kind of exploding star. These things are brighter than anything else we know of in the universe. In principle we can see them very far away but they're incredibly rare."

The astronomers used a NASA satellite called Swift to find bursts of gamma rays. They then scrambled to figure out where they came from. It turns out that when the universe was only about 600 million years old, a giant star collapsed on itself and turned into a black hole. That created a spectacular explosion, which in turn produced huge jets of radiation: gamma rays. The rays from that explosion took 13 billion years to reach Earth, finally arriving on April 23.

Then, two teams of scientists in Europe figured out that the star that exploded was the most distant object anyone has seen to date.

"It was absolutely thrilling — a spine-tingling moment, actually," Tanvir says.

The scientists report their discovery in Nature magazine. It's not only a thrill for the astronomers, but it's a rare glimpse at what our universe looked like when it was only five percent of its current age.

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STEVE INSKEEP, host:

Now let's turn our attention to a place that is as far away from Capitol Hill as we can imagine. Astronomers say they have detected the most distant object anyone has ever seen in the universe. NPR's Richard Harris has the story.

RICHARD HARRIS: One nice thing about the universe is it still holds some surprises. Nial Tanvir from the University of Leicester in England was lucky enough to find one.

Mr. NIAL TANVIR (University of Leicester): The thing that we discovered is called a gamma ray burst, this kind of exploding star, which these things are brighter than anything else we know of in the universe. So in principle you can see them very far away but they're incredibly rare.

HARRIS: But two teams of astronomers were lying in wait. They used a NASA satellite called Swift to find bursts of gamma rays, then scrambled to figure out where they came from. This burst, on April 23rd, turns out to have come from so far away and so far back in time, the universe was a mere 600 million years old when the star exploded, according to the report in Nature. The light from that explosion took 13 billion years to reach Earth.

Mr. TANVIR: It's absolutely thrilling, a spine-tingling moment, actually, but in a sense it was also a big relief.

HARRIS: Astronomers using the Swift satellite had designed their entire observing strategy to find very young and far away objects. So not finding the most distant object in the universe would actually have been a disappointment.

Richard Harris, NPR News.

(Soundbite of music)

INSKEEP: And you can get a look at that billions-of-years-old explosion on our Web site, NPR.org. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio.

Source: NPR

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