Posted on Thursday, October 29 2009 @ 18:58 CET by Thomas De Maesschalck
BBC News
writes astronomers have discovered a gamma-ray burst from a star that died 13.1 billion light-years away. The exploding star is the most distant object to be detected by telescopes, it died about 630 million years after the Big Bang.
UK astronomer Nial Tanvir described the observation as "a step back in cosmic time".
Professor Tanvir led an international team studying the afterglow of the explosion, using the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope (UKIRT) in Hawaii.
He told BBC News that his team was able to observe the afterglow for 10 days, while the gamma ray burst itself lasted around 12 seconds.
