Comments on: Biggest Ever Cosmic Explosion Observed 7.5 Billion Light Years Away

By: Maccas

Maccas — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 05:48:12 +0000

Mark,
back about Sept 2000 in the southerly direction of the Southern Cross (am in Australia) I saw a similar event in the sky to that you describe but which lasted for about 20sec before fading & was very bright, maybe nearly as bright as Venus if I recall correctly (long ago now). It illuminated to maximum brightness quickly, caught my attention, was steady in brightness & without motion & I remember thinking it couldn't possibly be a meteor & it didn't look as though it wasn't going to fade but then faded.
I assumed it may have been a supernova at the time but didn't know what to do about it or who to call etc. & assumed somebody more important than a casual backyard observer would have spotted it.
I would like to know more about what it may have been if anybody knows of such an event around that time. I think I could reconstruct more detail as the event stuck in my mind thats for sure & I made a reasonable mental note of it, time, date, approximate location in the sky. Trouble is I thought that if it was something very far away then even a small amount area of sky is still a huge area. Regret not following up at the time now but I think I started to go to the phone when it faded.

By: Maccas

Maccas — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 05:44:01 +0000

Michael said: "And with the moon about 240.000 miles distant, why did it take days, for the Apollos to reach at 25,000 mph, (instead of about 10 hours)?"
…..Clearly the additional time was to provide for the need for long Ad breaks on TV due to the worldwide commercial interest in going to the moon

re your question of the size of the Universe. I don't know where the 150B comes from but I put a related question to an online uni astronomer and was told something like (hope I got this right as was years ago now) – that the universe didn't start as a single point 13.7 billion years ago that exploded out from such that there is a "centre" but more of a soup that changed at the point of the big bang and expanded from that to present day. what we see as the universe continues to expand is that around us that light left 13.7B years ago, ie. it is much larger than what we see we just see the sphere around us of light just reaching us now that started 13.7B years ago. hmmm..the more I think about this the more I get screwed up…help!?

By: Michael

Michael — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 05:56:38 +0000

And a universal, iron-clad law of physics, proposed by Einstein and endosed by the physics community, is that nothing, ever, can travel faster than the speed of light. Hence my curiosity about a universe supposedly more than 150 bliion light years across having been formed in about 13.7 billion yerars. Maybe some cosmic math that completely escapes me.

By: Michael

Michael — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 05:51:56 +0000

holyavengerone
Increasingly larger orbits? Orbiting what? Sorry, but that makes no sense, whatsoever.
The Apollo settled into earth orbits before increasing speed to break free and begin the journey to moon orbit, (a distance of about 240,000, possibly as much as 255,000 miles because of the moon's eliptical orbit). So why would it take days, ( I keep hearing 3 or so), at 25,000 mph?
And the trajectories were very near a straight line.

By: Mark

Mark — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 01:01:08 +0000

Thanks Alphons. Yes, we were ridiculously lucky. I have checked several blogs to see if any one else has reported seeing thi sevent and so far – noone.

Could it be possible we were the only ones on the planet to see this? Any one else out there know of any one that has seen this?

By: alphonso richardson

alphonso richardson — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 11:59:11 +0000

Wow, Mark, you & your daughter were very lucky – you get to talk about a possible once-in-a lifetime event.
I is well jealous

By: holyavengerone

holyavengerone — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 03:09:39 +0000

Michael said: "And with the moon about 240.000 miles distant, why did it take days, for the Apollos to reach at 25,000 mph, (instead of about 10 hours)?"

For that one, I can tell you one thing: they didn't go there in a straight line. They did increasingly larger orbits until they reached it. So they did travel a lot more than the 240,000 miles you quote.

As for the size of the universe, not sure where you get your number from, but it can be explained by space inflation, especially in the first few moments of the universe.

By: Michael

Michael — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 08:45:42 +0000

*religious even

By: Michael

Michael — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 08:45:01 +0000

Not being particularly religious by nature, I still ponder the beginnings of it all and the structure of matter and energy – the relationship between light, gravity and electromagnetiism – the strong and weak nuclear forces. The possibility that a grand unification theory is real – and was laid down by an omnipotent designer/mathematician.
Oops… maybe I am religiuos, but when the religiuos begin to group, I get nervous.

By: Michael

Michael — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 05:06:38 +0000

Traveling 7.5 billion light years, like any light or cosmic rays, the dispersal is immense – at that distance, the gamma rays are harmless. And it will no longer be visible with the unaided eye because GRB's are relatively brief events – the afterglow barely visible with a highly specialized telescope.
But ponder this: with science claiming an age for the universe at about 13.7 billion years – how is it the universe supposed to be over 150 billion light years across?
And with the moon about 240.000 miles distant, why did it take days, for the Apollos to reach at 25,000 mph, (instead of about 10 hours)?

By: Mark

Mark — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 22:46:07 +0000

I witnesssed this with the naked eye. My daughter and I were star gazing and I happened to be extremely lucky to be looking right at it when it occurred. I was in my driveway in Dayton, OH area.

Didn't realize what I was witnessing until reading about it later on the net.

By: Pedro

Pedro — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 16:10:24 +0000

Visible to the human eye? How can we try to find it? Constellation? Hemysphere? Well… if it is south one… game over to me! But if it's north i would like to see it very much! Can someone help me?

By: astrojr1

astrojr1 — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 16:05:25 +0000

So was it the Gamma rays that just got red-shifted enough into the visible spectrum? Or was it a bunch of other light along with the gamma rays that we "saw", which would also have to be at a higher original wavelength, then get red-shifted themselves into the visible range. I suppose I could go google up the formulas but I'm a simple telescope-builder and rather lousy at math compared to the pros…

A me-too: how many rems or rads or whatever did the telescopes measure? If you watched it would it have been like getting a chest x-ray? a lot less? So many questions…

By: Shawn

Shawn — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 19:30:38 +0000

Now I did not realize that Gamma rays were "directed". I thought it acted as visible light. If we saw it we got hit by Gamma radiation. After 7.5 billion light years I just figured the radiation despersed a bit. Or is there something you scientists aren't telling us.

By: Fred Dominguez

Fred Dominguez — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 12:51:48 +0000

7.5 billion light years away, one half of distance of the universe. In the book of daniel 9:27 : and in the midst of the week he shall cause… In a book titled The witness of the stars by E.W.Bullinger, page 42 the constellation Bootes (the coming one) pictures a man walking rapidly, with a spear in his right hand and a sickle in his left hand. Revelation 14 : 14 – 16. For he cometh to judge the earth, and harvest it…

By: joe

joe — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 11:29:52 +0000

A lot of you are missing the point. What was the relative angle of thegamma ray burst? How much did it miss us by?

By: Carroll Slemaker

Carroll Slemaker — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 02:37:23 +0000

To BobLakewood:

The answer is that the distance is not the distance to the object today – that cannot be measured directly. It was the distance at the time the burst occurred.

By: p tanwani

p tanwani — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 00:05:02 +0000

amazing ! 7.5 billion years ago !

By: Allan Michael

Allan Michael — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 23:23:57 +0000

It is great to have access to a site like this. Like most people that visit here regularly I find myself absolutely engrossed in articles like this.

Thank you for keeping this site operating so well.

Allan in Nova Scotia.

By: Mike Cloutier

Mike Cloutier — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 20:07:50 +0000

Would this be a Population II star from which Pop 1 stars were formed?

By: Debi-Lee Wilkinson

Debi-Lee Wilkinson — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 20:01:23 +0000

So what are the coordinates? Why is it that the astronomy post never give us enough information to point our telescope? Many of the objects reported are not visible, or the news item, like the gamma ray burst itself, is neither visible nor still happening, but it could still be fun to look. And in this case, there is something to see. The article did say the constellation Bootes, but it is spans many degrees across the sky.

By: BobLakewood

BobLakewood — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 17:36:45 +0000

For objects located very far away, I would think that the expansion of space would result in 7.5 Billion LY distance to be different than 7.5 billion years ago. Distance (as stated in Light Years) would be greater than time

By: Andy

Andy — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 16:51:02 +0000

But "visible with the naked eye"? Can't believe that.

By: Gary

Gary — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 15:05:41 +0000

I told you not to eat Mexican last night.

By: richard crisp

richard crisp — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 14:19:47 +0000

amateur image from 20March evening:
http://www.narrowbandimaging.com/images/grb080319B_crisp.jpg