Only 630 million years after the creation of the Universe a super-massive star exploded in a violent supernova. The energy from this explosion has been traveling across the Universe ever since, more than 13 billion years. This event marks the most distant object ever observed.
These types of events, known as a gamma-ray burst or GRB, typically occur at least twice a week on average. However, this is the oldest event ever recorded, besting the previous mark by 150 million years.
GRBs are important to understanding the Universe as they allow us to "see" events that occurred billions of years ago. Normally, celestial events are difficult to observe when they are that far away, but GRBs emit so much light, particularly in the gamma-ray band (hence the name), that scientists can easily detect them.
Comments
Shouldn’t you have said, “…the Most Distant Object Ever Seen?
Yes, thanks for pointing that out. The original title was really wordy, so I was trying to cut it down as much as I could without losing the general meaning. Unfortunately, that meant the grammar was not entirely correct.