Article Posted on : - Sep 21, 2008

WASHINGTON, DC (BNS): NASA's Swift satellite detected the first-ever most distant Gamma-Ray Burst (GRB). The blast, nominated GRB 080913, came from an exploding star 12.8 billion light-years away.

The mission's lead scientist Neil Gehrels at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center said that this was the most amazing burst Swift had ever seen. “It's coming to us from near the edge of the visible universe,” Gehrels said.

GRB 080913's "look back time" reveals that the burst occurred less than 825 million years after the universe began, NASA said.

An organiser of the Swift observations event, Patricia Schady of the Mullard Space Science Laboratory at University College London, said, “This burst accompanies the death of a star from one of the universe's early generations."