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. 2009 Oct 29;461(7268):1254-7.
doi: 10.1038/nature08459.

A gamma-ray burst at a redshift of z approximately 8.2

N R Tanvir  1 , D B Fox, A J Levan, E Berger, K Wiersema, J P U Fynbo, A Cucchiara, T Krühler, N Gehrels, J S Bloom, J Greiner, P A Evans, E Rol, F Olivares, J Hjorth, P Jakobsson, J Farihi, R Willingale, R L C Starling, S B Cenko, D Perley, J R Maund, J Duke, R A M J Wijers, A J Adamson, A Allan, M N Bremer, D N Burrows, A J Castro-Tirado, B Cavanagh, A de Ugarte Postigo, M A Dopita, T A Fatkhullin, A S Fruchter, R J Foley, J Gorosabel, J Kennea, T Kerr, S Klose, H A Krimm, V N Komarova, S R Kulkarni, A S Moskvitin, C G Mundell, T Naylor, K Page, B E Penprase, M Perri, P Podsiadlowski, K Roth, R E Rutledge, T Sakamoto, P Schady, B P Schmidt, A M Soderberg, J Sollerman, A W Stephens, G Stratta, T N Ukwatta, D Watson, E Westra, T Wold, C Wolf
Affiliations

A gamma-ray burst at a redshift of z approximately 8.2

N R Tanvir et al. Nature. .

Abstract

Long-duration gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are thought to result from the explosions of certain massive stars, and some are bright enough that they should be observable out to redshifts of z > 20 using current technology. Hitherto, the highest redshift measured for any object was z = 6.96, for a Lyman-alpha emitting galaxy. Here we report that GRB 090423 lies at a redshift of z approximately 8.2, implying that massive stars were being produced and dying as GRBs approximately 630 Myr after the Big Bang. The burst also pinpoints the location of its host galaxy.

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References

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