Article Posted on : - May 26, 2011

This image taken by NASA's Swift satellite shows what scientists suspect is the most distant object ever seen in space. Photo: ASA/Swift

BOSTON (BNS): Astronomers have found the brightest explosion of light in the night sky, which is possibly the most distant object ever seen in the universe, a media report said.

The distant is estimated to be around 13.14 billion light-years away, making it potentially the farthest object yet detected in space.

"Beyond the possible cosmic distance record, progenitor star of GRB 090429B illustrates how gamma-ray bursts can be used to reveal the locations of massive stars in the early universe and to track the processes of early galaxy and star formation that eventually led to the galaxy-rich cosmos we see around us today," Science daily quoted Derek Fox, associate professor of astronomy and astrophysics at Penn State and a co-author of the paper as saying.

The calculation suggests that the burst occurred when the universe was only 520 million years old, less than 4 percent its present age. The universe is now about 13.7 billion years old, scientists estimate.

The brightest explosion occurs only when a supernova star dies and releases huge energy and gamma-ray radiation which last for few minutes but the fading afterglow is captured by Scientists through astronomical facilities from days to weeks.