Astronomers Spy Oldest Object In Universe

Satellites Catch Gamma-Ray Burst From Star's Death That Occurred Over 13 Billion Years Ago

(CBS/AP)  Astronomers have spotted a burst of energy from a dying star, setting a record for the oldest and most distant object seen by Earth yet.

The 10-second blast was from when the universe was only 630 million years old.

NASA's Swift satellite spotted the gamma-ray burst, an explosion of high-powered radiation, on April 23.

Then ground telescopes watched the X-ray afterglow and calculated it had traveled 13.035 billion light-years to get here.

The event (dubbed GRB 090423) is the most distant cosmic explosion ever witnessed, beating old records by 100 or 200 million light-years.

"It was a true blast from the past," said Swift's lead scientist Neil Gehrels, at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

NASA astrophysicist Neil Gehrels said the star's fiery death gave birth to a black hole.

The star was only 1 million years old or so and was about 30 times the size of our sun.

[Void_Master]

A lot of good info in most of these posts. Thanks.

[redbarron73]

Sorry about offending you redBarron. I didn't think it was that bad of an idea! Posted by BerkelySkirtLifter.

No offense taken, as a matter of fact, I like the "eye yam." Hadn't seen that before.

From your earlier post, I mistook you for one of the "young earth" religious creationist nut jobs.

Sorry if I offended you :-)

[rf35]

Since you aren't intelligently designed, that makes you UN-INTELLIGENT.

Thanks for admitting it in your post.
Posted by Right_Wing_Extremist at 8:34 PM : Apr 29, 2009

By your logic, someone intelligent must have designed the one who designed us or that designer would be unintelligent. There would therefore have to be an infinite series of designers going back forever. I find the big bang easier to wrap my mind around that an eternal history of intelligent designers designing other intelligent beings.

[specialty8]

No, they just saw a picture of plastic Pelosi and it scared them.

[Right_Wing_Extremist]

Amazing how the intelligent design folks are a complete paradox to their theory of origins? Yeah for science .... evolution is alive and well! In 1000 years the dumb as dirt rednecks will be less dumb but unfortunatly still rednecks!
Posted by txlakeside

The only one who is dumb as dirt is you, because by DEFAULT you CAN't USE the word "Intelligent" nor can YOU be "Intelligent", because you don't believe you are intelligently designed.

Since you aren't intelligently designed, that makes you UN-INTELLIGENT.

Thanks for admitting it in your post.

[amer_icon]

Next question, how do they determine that the distance was only 13billion lightyears away and not 95billion lightyears away???


Anybody?

[amer_icon]

Hey kids !

Question:

"How did they measure the distance to this star? "

Answer:

Apparenlty, they base the distance on which wavelengths of the 'light' spectrum do and don't reach us after traveling so far.

"Beyond a certain distance, the expansion of the universe shifts all optical emission into longer infrared wavelengths. While a star's ultraviolet light could be similarly shifted into the visible region, ultraviolet-absorbing hydrogen gas grows thicker at earlier times. "If you look far enough away, you can't see visible light from any object. If you look far enough away, you can't see visible light from any object."

In this case no visible light appeared from this event. While longer-wavelength 'light' appeared the shortest wavelength of 1 micron was absent. This "drop out" corresponded to a distance of about 13 billion light-years.

[redbarron73]

BerkelySkirtLifter,denn034,sky_five,and bornin1952,

Repeat over and over until you get it...." I am sofa king we todd did"

[Void_Master]

I look at it like this. I don't worry about educating someone like bornin1952 in such things as astronomy. Hey... somebody has to wash dishes.

I feel it is the job of the rocket scientists to get us to the stars. And as an author, I do my best to keep the disk washers interested in paying for the trip.

[Void_Master]

It is a good thing, bornin1952, that you avoid delving into things you are incapable of comprehending -- astronomy being one of them. Just stick to watching football. That should just about tax your mental capacity to its limit.

[Hal9King]

To paraphrase Einstein: Its a search for something more infinite than human stupidity.
So far no luck.

[briannorwood]

alphaa10000:

My understanding of the big bang is that the universe did indeed begin as a single, infinitesimally small point.

So, my question was, if at some point in the past, everything was closer together, then the object we are observing was also closer than 13 billion light years away when the nova occurred 13 billion years ago. So then, why does it take the light from this object 13 billion years to travel to us?

[rf35]

briannorwood, good question. I honestly never thought of that. I'm no astronomer either, though. Can anyone answer this one?


P.S. Death to OPEC.

[briannorwood]

What I don't get is if the universe was much smaller 13 billion years ago, then how did this object get to be 13 billion light years away from us?

[txlakeside]

Amazing how the intelligent design folks are a complete paradox to their theory of origins? Yeah for science .... evolution is alive and well! In 1000 years the dumb as dirt rednecks will be less dumb but unfortunatly still rednecks!

[rf35]

Hey CBS, how about proofing at least your headline before posting? "Oldest Object Yet Detected" or "Oldest Object Ever Observed" would be accurate. Dubbing this the "Oldest Object in the Universe" is just plain wrong and gives ammunition for the young Earth knot-heads who love to try and trash any story that doesn't agree with their fairytale version of the universe. They've decided radiometric dating is a crock, but I haven't seen their explainations for astronomical dating methods yet. How about it Rick, wanna tackle that one for us?

OK, that's enough of the rant. The Swift satellite is a wonderful tool to have to detect these short-lived events. I recently watched a documentary on monitoring and reporting process for Swift. Since the events it's designed to observe are short-lived, the data is monitored 24 hours/day and there is a network in place to inform astronomers where to point their telescopes when an event is seen. It's not a matter of luck, as one poster sarcastically suggested; it's a highly coordinated effort amongst a well-trained team of professionals using cutting-edge tools. Good job on this one, folks!

[realnews12]

This allows one to apply a distance estimate to every short-hard GRB with a recorded fluence... "

Posted by alphaa10000 at 4:56 AM : Apr 29, 2009

Or as I said earlier:

"The Universe is expanding at a known rate. In other words, the expansion velocity is a function of distance. The radial velocity (i.e., along the line of sight to the object) can be measured by the Doppler shift of the object's spectral lines. Hence, the distance of the object is determined."

[theOriginalGatekeeper]

You are right astrology is worthless. But, what does that have to do with this story? There isn't any fortune telling going on here. Or, is it, you are too stupid to know we are talking about Astronomy? Which, by the way, isn't funded by taxpayer money. It is, usually, research done by universities. As for unemployed astrologist, well, I'm sure they will find another scam to get involved with. Astronomers, on the other hand, are busy working in observatories or universities.

[Void_Master]

Well I gotta run again. And no, I have not yet figured out how they "confirmed" the distance to this star. I'll check back again as I get a chance. So far, searches on the Internet have not turned up anything definitive.

[Void_Master]

In any case, I find astronomy one of the most fascinating fields of study. And it seems the further out we look, the more we encounter the unexpected -- not just the previously unseen, but things we did not *expect* to find.