Most distant gamma-ray burst spotted

October 28, 2009 - Nature.com
Two teams have spied a huge blast from the far reaches of our early Universe. Such γ-ray bursts occur when certain massive stars violently explode. The latest burst happened a mere 630 million years after the Big Bang (that's 13.1 billion years ago) and is the youngest such blast to have been spotted — the previous record-beater happened 825 million years after the Big Bang.
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Tanvir's team used the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope (UKIRT) and the Gemini North 8-metre telescope, both on Hawaii, to track the burst from about 20 minutes after it was first seen. Strong winds, which can damage the telescope if it is in use, made it too dangerous to use UKIRT for long. "The weather was pretty bad that night," says Tanvir...
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Astronomical Artifact: Most Distant Object Yet Detected Carries Clues from Early Universe

October 28, 2009 - Scientific American
A violent explosion picked up by a NASA satellite earlier this year is the oldest object ever seen by astronomers, its light having been emitted some 13 billion years ago. At that time the universe was roughly 5 percent of its present age and the big bang was a fairly recent occurrence, having taken place just 600 million years earlier.
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[Image caption: A false-color image from the Gemini North Telescope in Hawaii shows the afterglow of GRB 090423 [circled], the most distant astronomical event yet observed.]