Map of the Universe

GRB 090423

Explosion or burst · Very distant gamma-ray burst detected in 2009

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GRB 090423
Picture: International Gemini Observatory/NSF/AURA, D. Fox and A. Cucchiara (Penn State Univ.) and E. Berger (Harvard Univ.), CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

About GRB 090423

The light we see from it set out 13.2 billion years ago, when the universe was 0.614 billion years old (redshift 8.23).

The map lists it as an explosion or burst and shows it at the scale of the large-scale universe, drawn on the supergalactic plane.

The most distant gamma-ray burst with a spectroscopic redshift.

Key numbers

Distance (comoving, today)30 billion light-years (9,198 Mpc)
Redshift z8.23
Light travel time13.2 billion years
Universe's age when this light left0.614 billion years
Distance methodredshift (Planck 2018 cosmology)
Supergalactic coordinatesSGL 80.9°, SGB -34.1°

Where it is

Its place in the universe, from the inside out: Observable universe.

Zoom out to see it in context: Observable universe, a view about 100 billion light-years across.

From Wikipedia

GRB 090423 was a gamma-ray burst (GRB) detected by the Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Mission on April 23, 2009, at 07:55:19 UTC whose afterglow was detected in the infrared and enabled astronomers to determine that its redshift is z = 8.2, making it one of the most distant objects detected at that time with a spectroscopic redshift.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article GRB 090423, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

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