Astronomers See Oldest Object in Universe

[Joey D]

With all the talk of the carpocalypse, pig flu, and gunman killing people every day, many other things fly under the radar which are perhaps just as important to our society.

Exploding star is oldest object seen in universe

Edo Berger got an alert early last Thursday morning when a satellite detected a 10-second blast of energy known as a gamma ray burst coming from outer space.

Telescopes around the world swiveled to focus on the explosion, soon picking up infrared radiation, which is produced after gamma rays in this kind of event. Berger was ready to view the visible light, which should have followed.

It never arrived.

"We were kind of blown away. We immediately knew what that meant," Berger said.

What it meant was that he was looking at the oldest thing ever spotted -- an enormous star exploding 13 billion years ago.

"At that point the age of the universe was only 600 million years," he said. In other words, Berger said, he was looking "95 percent of the way back to the beginning of time."

The star which exploded was 30 to 100 times larger than our own sun, and when it died, it gave off "about million times the amount of energy the sun will release in its entire lifetime," Berger told CNN by phone from Harvard University, where he is an assistant professor of astronomy.

Its death throes produced so much energy that "momentarily, we can essentially see it anywhere in the universe," Berger said.

The object, known as GRB 090423, is about 200 million years older than the previous record-holder for oldest object ever seen.

Berger isn't just interested in the record books, though -- the gamma ray burst extended the frontiers of human knowledge about the history of the universe.

"We learn that already massive stars were around 600 million years after the universe formed," Berger said. "We suspected that, but now we have proof. Now that we know these objects are so bright, in the next few years we should be able to pinpoint exactly at what stage in the evolution of the universe stars and galaxies formed."

"There are theories" about when that happened, Berger said, "But they are all over the place. People let their imaginations run wild."

Given the discovery last week -- which was announced Tuesday -- Berger thinks it is possible that he will soon have a clear answer.

"If we talk in a few years, hopefully I would be able to tell you exactly when that happened," he said.

The gamma radiation from GRB 090423, which took 13 billion years to reach earth, was detected by a NASA satellite called Swift. The infrared radiation was detected by the Gemini Observatory in Hawaii.

It's discoveries like this that help us figure out what started it all and how long everything has really been here. It's pretty fascinating stuff to say the least.

 

[Bram Turismo]

13 billion years. That's too much for me to even comprehend such an amount of time.

 

[Touring Mars]

Would it not be more accurate to call this object one of the youngest yet seen in the universe? We are seeing it as it was at just half a billion years old - conversely, the "oldest" objects we can see must be alot closer to home. Galaxies are all approximately the same age - we only see other galaxies at different stages in their evolution due to their immense distance from us, and the finite speed of light - hence the more distant a galaxy is, the younger it must be... The "oldest" stars we can see are right here in our own galaxy, indeed there are objects in the Milky Way that are known to be almost as old as the Universe itself. So shouldn't a dying star in a very early proto-galaxy be considered very young?

I'm going for a lie down

 

[C-ZETA]

Sorry, what? How many years? 13 billion years?! I don't quite believe that.

 

[Joey D]

Would it not be more accurate to call this object one of the youngest yet seen in the universe? We are seeing it as it was at just half a billion years old - conversely, the "oldest" objects we can see must be alot closer to home. Galaxies are all approximately the same age - we only see other galaxies at different stages in their evolution due to their immense distance from us, and the finite speed of light - hence the more distant a galaxy is, the younger it must be... The "oldest" stars we can see are right here in our own galaxy, indeed there are objects in the Milky Way that are known to be almost as old as the Universe itself. So shouldn't a dying star in a very early proto-galaxy be considered very young?

I'm going for a lie down

That makes sense, at least to me is does. Maybe the best way to describe it as the oldest light source since the light coming to us is 13 billion years old.

 

[buickgnx88]

Kind of weird to think that what we're seeing happened 13 billion years in the past!

 

[homeforsummer]

I was going to post this story myself actually but forgot, so thanks for doing so, Joey! It really is fascinating. I think the previous furthest objects detected in the universe were those in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field. What's most amazing is that no matter how far away these objects are - right at the horizon of the universe - there are objects even farther away that we just haven't seen yet as the light hasn't reached our planet.

To put how amazing that is into perspective, light travels at around 670,616,629.4 mph. That's six hundred and seventy million, six hundred and sixteen thousand, six hundred and twenty-nine point four miles an hour. Or over 186k miles every second.

And yet, even at that speed, light from this most recent discovery has still taken 13 billion years to reach us.

 

[Casio]

And to think, I came into this thread expecting to see a picture of my mother.

 

[homeforsummer]

Ba-dum tish

 

[Mark T]

Ba-dum tish

Sounds like Casio's Mum just fell over. :|

 

[homeforsummer]

 

[Omnis]

Here's the same explosion zoomed in:

 

[TheCracker]

👍

 

[homeforsummer]

Here's the same explosion zoomed in:

Nah, that's the wrong one. This is the close-up:

NOOOOOSSSSSS!

 

[Omnis]

Broe, at least post a Star Trek explosion.