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Nature 440, 164 (9 March 2006) | doi:10.1038/440164a; Received 11 November 2005; Accepted 23 November 2005; Published online 8 February 2006

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Gamma-ray bursts: Huge explosion in the early Universe

G. Cusumano1, V. Mangano1, G. Chincarini2,3, A. Panaitescu4, D. N. Burrows5, V. La Parola1, T. Sakamoto6,7, S. Campana2, T. Mineo1, G. Tagliaferri2, L. Angelini6, S. D. Barthelemy6, A. P. Beardmore8, P. T. Boyd6, L. R. Cominsky9, C. Gronwall5, E. E. Fenimore4, N. Gehrels6, P. Giommi10, M. Goad8, K. Hurley11, J. A. Kennea5, K. O. Mason12, F. Marshall6, P. Mészáros5,13, J. A. Nousek5, J. P. Osborne8, D. M. Palmer4, P. W. A. Roming5, A. Wells8, N. E. White6 & B. Zhang14

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Long gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are bright flashes of high-energy photons that can last for tens of minutes; they are generally associated with galaxies that have a high rate of star formation and probably arise from the collapsing cores of massive stars, which produce highly relativistic jets (collapsar model1). Here we describe gamma- and X-ray observations of the most distant GRB ever observed (GRB 050904): its redshift2, 3 (z) of 6.29 means that this explosion happened 12.8 billion years ago, corresponding to a time when the Universe was just 890 million years old, close to the reionization era4. This means that not only did stars form in this short period of time after the Big Bang, but also that enough time had elapsed for them to evolve and collapse into black holes.

  1. INAF-Istituto di Astrofisica Spaziale e Fisica Cosmica di Palermo, 90146 Palermo, Italy
  2. INAF Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera, 23807 Merate, Italy
  3. Università degli studi di Milano-Bicocca, Dipartimento di Fisica, 20126 Milan, Italy
  4. Los Alamos National Laboratory, PO Box 1663, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545, USA
  5. Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics, Pennsylvania State University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 16802, USA
  6. NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771, USA
  7. National Research Council, TJ2114, Washington DC 20418, USA
  8. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Leicester, Leicester LE1 7RH, UK
  9. Department of Physics and Astronomy, Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park, California 94928-3609, USA
  10. ASI Science Data Center, 00044 Frascati, Italy
  11. Space Sciences Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720-7450, USA
  12. Mullard Space Science Laboratory, University College London, Holmbury St Mary, Dorking, Surrey RH5 6NT, UK
  13. Department of Physics, Pennsylvania State University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 16802, USA
  14. Department of Physics, University of Nevada, Box 454002, Las Vegas, Nevada 89154-4002, USA

Correspondence to: G. Cusumano1 Email: cusumano@ifc.inaf.it