Cool

Or actually, very hot, I would guess. Here's a report on the oldest thing we've found so far: a star that exploded 13 billion years ago.

Analysis of the light spectrum confirmed the blast had a redshift of 8.2. Redshift is a measure of the degree to which light has been "stretched" by the expansion of the Universe. The greater the redshift, the more distant the object and the earlier it is being seen in cosmic history.

The figure 8.2 equates to a distance of 13.035 billion light-years. Put another way, the explosion is being viewed when the Universe was only 630 million years old, a mere one-20th of its current age (estimated to be 13.7 billion years old).

The previous record holder was a GRB witnessed, also by Swift, in September 2008. It had a redshift of 6.7, making it 190 million light-years closer than GRB 090423.

Scientists have seen what they believe may be faint galaxies at redshifts 8-10, but their true nature is still being investigated.

Researchers are very keen to probe these great distances because they will learn how the early Universe evolved, and that will help them explain why the cosmos looks like it does now.

Just a little something to keep you humble.