Most Distant Object Yet Seen (Earth, stars, light, solar)

[NightBazaar]

Light from a star that exploded 13 billion years ago has been detected, becoming the most distant object in the universe ever observed.

Slightly over 13 billion years ago. Estimated to have exploded about 630 million years after the theoretical Big Bang, when the universe was about 4% of its current age. Light from the gamma ray burst just reached Earth April 23.


SPACE.com -- Violent Explosion Is Most Distant Object Ever Seen

[Narcissus23]

The light that enters the eye? Brain cannot see anything actually further than the light that reaches the eye.

Interesting video on the brain.

Jill Bolte Taylor's stroke of insight | Video on TED.com

[etacarinae]

Luckily the nearest known candidate for a GRB is 8000 LY distant.

[NightBazaar]

Originally Posted by etacarinae

Luckily the nearest known candidate for a GRB is 8000 LY distant.

Yep, there goes the neighborhood. If we're looking down the barrel at WR 104, it could get nasty. Seems to be somewhat uncertain though. Some say it could be a direct hit, others say it may close, but still miss the solar system altogether. There are some views that the stars in the binary system might not be the kind that would result in a supernova, and go nova instead. Whatever it does, it could take 8,000 years to know about it, unless it already happened almost that long ago, then we'll find out a lot sooner.

WR 104 Won't Kill Us After All | Universe Today

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/ba...mma-ray-burst/

Space Disco : Discovery Space: To GRB? Or Not to GRB? That is the WR 104 Question (http://blogs.discovery.com/space_disco/2009/08/wr-104-are-we-looking-down-the-barrel-of-a-gammaray-burst-.html - broken link)