Huge gamma-ray blast spotted 12.2 bln light-years from earth

[Category 5]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090219/sc ... eastronomy

found this interesting.

[O Town]

Very interesting....thx

[coriolis]

12.2 billion light years away means that this explosion actually happened 12.2 billion years ago. The radiation is just now reaching us.

It's definitely a peek into the past.

[Ptarmigan]

The gamma-ray burst happened 12.2 billion years ago, about 8 billion years before our Solar System even existed. The light is coming to us now. I remember last year, there was a gamma-ray burst that was visible with the naked eye and it was 8 billion light years away. It was the most distant naked eye visible object known. Normally, it is the Andromeda Galaxy or Pinwheel Galaxy in Triangulum. Sometimes, Messier 81 can be visible with your own eyes under perfect condition. If a gamma-ray burst was closer to us, we would all be wiped out.