[marvlus]

How is it that we can detect something that far away? Any layman's answer would be much appreciated.

[Conan the Librarian]

Very sensitive tools. Tools more sensitive than a Liberal looking at a bunny. Tools more sensitive than Jessie Jackson. Tools more sensitive than even Barbra S!

Ok... a lot of what they are going on is theoretical speculation on what would cause a outburst of UV that strong in that short a period. There are only so many events that can cause those outbursts. Detecting is the easy part, analysis is the hard part.

A high powered telescope, a high powered UV detector and some guts behind it.

[Pox]

The light, or in this case actually ultraviolet radiation, has nothing substantial in between us and the target galaxy to block or absorb the radiation that was emitted, so basically that radiation traveled for 4 billion years from there to here and we simply 'see' it, the same as the light you see from the stars in the sky.

The light from the Sun we 'see' in the same manner, but its emissions only take minutes to get here.

[JerseyJohn61]

Marv,

they are very bright objects in the deep darkness
of space.

But to really understand how truly distant those
objects are; multiply 4 billion by 6 trillion.
4 billion being the light years distance and 6
trillion being the mile distance light can travel
in one year.

The answer is one BIG number....JJ61

[ASA Vet]

ping