“a true blast from the past..”

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M33 ultraviolet and infrared[Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech]. I had mentioned just how really big space is. Left is an image of M33, one of our closest galactic neighbours at just 2.9 million light-years away, viewed in ultraviolet – to show recent star formation – by the Galaxy Evolution Explorer, celebrating 6 years in operation, and in infrared by the Spitzer Space Telescope. Below is an image of one of our most distant relatives, also from Spitzer. With a red shift of 8.2, corresponding to a distance of around 13.035 billion light years, when the Universe was only 630 million years old, Gamma Ray Burst 090423 is the most distant cosmic explosion detected yet. [Second Image Credit: NASA/Swift/Stefan Immler.] Telescopes, eh? Just be thankful it wasn’t closer.. Oh, and Europe’s Herschel and Planck telescopes will be launched on 14 May.
Gamma Ray Burst 090423

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