BBC - April 28, 2009
The cataclysmic explosion of a giant star early in the history of the Universe is the most distant single object ever detected by telescopes.
The colossal blast was picked up first by Nasa's Swift space observatory which is tuned to see the high-energy gamma-rays emitted from extreme events.
Other telescopes then followed up the signal, confirming the source to be more than 13 billion light-years away.
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Follow-up observations were led by the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope and the Gemini North Telescope, both on Mauna Kea, Hawaii.
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