May 25, 2011 - Nature NewsBlog (subscription)
A record has been set for the most distant gamma-ray burst, astronomers announced at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Boston today. The result pushes back the time by which stars and galaxies must have formed to just 500 million years after the Big Bang, 13.7 billion years ago.
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... The GRB discussed today at the meeting, GRB090329B, was first picked up in 2009 by NASA’s Swift satellite, and then imaged by the 8.1 meter Gemini North telescope in Mauna Kea, Hawaii. But due to bad weather in Hawaii, the research team was not able to study the afterglow long enough to obtain a detailed spectrum that would have pinpointed how faraway it was.
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