Zooming in on Universe's First Starlight: "Everything Else Came After This"

Scientists have seen the first starlight ever recorded, and we don't mean the first incidence of a monkey marking something down - we mean the first star to send light which reached Earth.  This light is the earliest, the furthest away, the most red-shifted, and every other factor that could possibly say "Everything else ever came after this."

The bright light is also poignant as it results from a Gamma Ray Burst, GRB 090423, meaning that this first light comes from the death of a star imploding into a neutron star or even an early black hole.  The light exhibited a record breaking redshift of 8.2, the electromagnetic equivalent of an ambulance's siren sounding lower pitched because it's moving away from you.  Now ramp up that ambulance close to the speed of light, turn it into an exploding sun, put it on the opposite end of the observable universe and - while you're at it - stick it at the beginning of time.

The event occurred when the universe was only half a billion years old and the light has literally spent all of time to get here.  The signal was detected by the Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Mission, and a good thing too - can you imagine coming all that way and not being seen?  The starburst was so early it was used to confirm that this kind of thing even happened back then.  The signal outshone galaxies, and is now our earliest evidence of anything that happened back then.

Think about that while you surf Twitter.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20091029/sc_nm/us_star

Comments

[Narendra Nath]

If that is true then it is the first ever cosmological study of the oldest star in the universe. Nothing has yet beeen reported from a time as far back as 13.2 billion years ago. Any special report on the findings from this study, i am keen to know.

[Barrie O'Leary]

Well, Mr. Nath, consider yourself as being informed. I would consider it to have been a supermassive star to have formed and
detonated all within only 500 million years. It must have formed a black hole which,who knows, has gone on to amalgamate into a galaxy. Could there have been galaxies then? The article intimates such by mentioning that the supernova outshone all galaxies. But I find it intriguing that this event could probably have occurred before life could have emerged anywhere in the entire cosmos.

But please, for amateurs like me, what does a redshift of 8.2 equate to in lightyear speed? I have a sneaking suspicion that it is even greater than c. That would create some interesting discussion.