Astronomers in Hawaii have photographed the most distant object ever seen.
NASA's Swift satellite first spotted the 10-second-long burst on April 23, but could not see any corresponding visible light to match it. This suggested the burst occurred in an early time of the universe some 13 billion years ago, when dense clouds of hydrogen gas completely absorbed visible light, obscuring our view of a time when scientists believe the first stars and galaxies were born.
Subsequent examinations of the gamma-ray burst were taken from two ground-based telescopes located on Mauna Kea, Hawaii: the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope and the Gemini North telescope.
Astronomers using these telescopes were able to look at the burst's infrared light afterglow to determine the distance of the explosion based on its redshift, or how much the light's wavelength had stretched towards the red end of the spectrum in response to the expansion of the universe. Just as the sound of a radio from a car moving away from us sounds stretched out, so too does light shift to a longer wavelength as its source moves farther away. Since the universe is expanding, faraway objects are moving away at a faster rate than those closer to us, and so their redshift is correspondingly higher.
Subsequent examinations of the gamma-ray burst were taken from two ground-based telescopes located on Mauna Kea, Hawaii: the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope and the Gemini North telescope.
Astronomers using these telescopes were able to look at the burst's infrared light afterglow to determine the distance of the explosion based on its redshift, or how much the light's wavelength had stretched towards the red end of the spectrum in response to the expansion of the universe. Just as the sound of a radio from a car moving away from us sounds stretched out, so too does light shift to a longer wavelength as its source moves farther away. Since the universe is expanding, faraway objects are moving away at a faster rate than those closer to us, and so their redshift is correspondingly higher.
I just love how they figure these things out.