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Star explodes halfway across universe (NASA's Swift detects star's GRB; reached Earth early Wed.)
AP on Yahoo ^ | 3/21/08 | Seth Borenstein - ap

Posted on 03/21/2008 4:07:07 PM PDT by NormsRevenge

WASHINGTON - The explosion of a star halfway across the universe was so huge it set a record for the most distant object that could be seen on Earth by the naked eye.

The aging star, in a previously unknown galaxy, exploded in a gamma ray burst 7.5 billion light years away, its light finally reaching Earth early Wednesday.

The gamma rays were detected by NASA's Swift satellite at 2:12 a.m. "We'd never seen one before so bright and at such a distance," NASA's Neil Gehrels said. It was bright enough to be seen with the naked eye.

However, NASA has no reports that any skywatchers spotted the burst, which lasted less than an hour. Telescopic measurements show that the burst — which occurred when the universe was about half its current age — was bright enough to be seen without a telescope.

"Someone would have had to run out and look at it with a naked eye, but didn't," said Gehrels, chief of NASA's astroparticles physics lab at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

The starburst would have appeared as bright as some of the stars in the handle of the Little Dipper constellation, said Penn State University astronomer David Burrows. How it looked wasn't remarkable, but the distance traveled was.

The 7.5 billion light years away far eclipses the previous naked eye record of 2.5 million light years. One light year is 5.9 trillion miles.

"This is roughly halfway to the edge of the universe," Burrows said.

Before it exploded, the star was about 40 times bigger than our sun. The explosion vaporized any planet nearby, Gehrels said.


TOPICS: Astronomy; Science
KEYWORDS: catastrophism; explodes; goshijust; hatewhenthathappens; littledipper; nasa; star; stringtheory; swift; universe; xplanets
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1 posted on 03/21/2008 4:07:08 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
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NASA’s Swift satellite
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/swift/main/index.html


2 posted on 03/21/2008 4:07:56 PM PDT by NormsRevenge (Semper Fi ... Godspeed ... ICE’s toll-free tip hotline —1-866-DHS-2-ICE ... 9/11 .. Never FoRGeT)
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Click the image for a larger pic..

The extremely luminous afterglow of GRB 080319B was imaged by
Swift's X-ray Telescope (left) and Optical/Ultraviolet Telescope (right).
This was by far the brightest gamma-ray burst afterglow ever seen.
Credit: NASA/Swift/Stefan Immler, et al.


3 posted on 03/21/2008 4:10:28 PM PDT by NormsRevenge (Semper Fi ... Godspeed ... ICE’s toll-free tip hotline —1-866-DHS-2-ICE ... 9/11 .. Never FoRGeT)
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Press RElease

NASA Satellite Detects Naked-Eye Explosion Halfway Across Universe
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2008/brightest_grb.html


4 posted on 03/21/2008 4:12:19 PM PDT by NormsRevenge (Semper Fi ... Godspeed ... ICE’s toll-free tip hotline —1-866-DHS-2-ICE ... 9/11 .. Never FoRGeT)
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To: NormsRevenge

Sounds like 3rd or 4th magnitude, which would have been washed out by city lights here.


5 posted on 03/21/2008 4:12:24 PM PDT by RightWhale (Clam down! avoid ataque de nervosa)
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To: NormsRevenge
I had to look it up.

A light year is 5,865,696,000,000 miles

Times 7,500,000,000 = Miles to event.

My calculator just died.

6 posted on 03/21/2008 5:15:48 PM PDT by TexasCajun
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To: RightWhale

Imagine all he civilizations that have come and gone over the 15 billion year history of the universe.

Earth is 5 billion years old. Just imagine what all has happened during those 10 billions years that came before us.

John


7 posted on 03/21/2008 5:20:24 PM PDT by Diggity
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To: TexasCajun

Kinda humbles ya a little bit don’t it??


8 posted on 03/21/2008 5:23:46 PM PDT by sit-rep
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To: NormsRevenge

**The explosion vaporized any planet nearby, Gehrels said.**

Whoa!!


9 posted on 03/21/2008 7:12:47 PM PDT by rahbert
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To: NormsRevenge

Damn, I wait 7.5 billion years for this, and I’m in the can when it happens.


10 posted on 03/21/2008 7:18:34 PM PDT by Larry Lucido (Still looking for UART at FX1050)
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To: NormsRevenge

So that’s what I felt. :)


11 posted on 03/21/2008 7:51:26 PM PDT by Repeal 16-17 (Let me know when the Shooting starts.)
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To: NormsRevenge

Bush’s fault, of course


12 posted on 03/21/2008 9:27:57 PM PDT by JRios1968 ("If you go over a cliff with all flags flying, you are still going over a cliff"—Ronald Reagan)
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To: NormsRevenge
Are these the same Gamma Rays that turned Bruce Banner Into The Hulk?
That would explain my Road Rage incident Thurssday.

13 posted on 03/22/2008 5:52:34 AM PDT by Brainhose (What's It Going To Do.... Nibble Your Bum!?)
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To: NormsRevenge

Not to sound like a ditz, but does this mean that this happened 7.5 billion years ago and we are just able to see it now?


14 posted on 03/22/2008 10:49:09 AM PDT by Aggie Mama
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To: NormsRevenge

No wonder it’s taking Voyager so long to get home.


15 posted on 03/22/2008 10:51:25 AM PDT by purpleraine
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To: NormsRevenge

With the current lack of sunspots, we could use all the GRB we can get.

It was warm Wednesday. Here, anyway.


16 posted on 03/22/2008 12:11:17 PM PDT by UCANSEE2 (Just saying what 'they' won't.)
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To: KevinDavis; annie laurie; garbageseeker; Knitting A Conundrum; Viking2002; Ernest_at_the_Beach; ...
 
X-Planets
· join · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post new topic ·

17 posted on 03/23/2008 10:03:19 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/______________________Profile updated Saturday, March 1, 2008)
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To: AdmSmith; bvw; callisto; ckilmer; dandelion; ganeshpuri89; gobucks; KevinDavis; Las Vegas Dave; ...
One of those rarities, a triple list ping.

18 posted on 03/23/2008 10:05:32 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/______________________Profile updated Saturday, March 1, 2008)
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To: 75thOVI; AFPhys; aimhigh; Alice in Wonderland; AndrewC; aristotleman; Avoiding_Sulla; BenLurkin; ...
 
Catastrophism
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19 posted on 03/23/2008 10:06:00 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/______________________Profile updated Saturday, March 1, 2008)
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To: NormsRevenge

Sounds like a real monster. It probably destroyed whatever life was present in that galaxy, at least the ones in its “aim”.


20 posted on 03/23/2008 10:11:16 PM PDT by Paradox (Politics: The art of convincing the populace that your delusions are superior to others.)
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