Credit: S. G. Djorgovski and S. R. Kulkarni (Caltech), the Caltech GRB Team, and W. M. Keck Observatory

Images of the GRB 971214 field, obtained with the W.M. Keck 10-meter telescope on Mauna Kea, Hawaii. The image on the left shows the visible-light afterglow of the burst (marked with an arrow), obtained about two days after the burst, while it was still relatively bright. The image on the right shows the same field as seen about two months later, after the burst afterglow has faded away, revealing a faint galaxy at its position (also marked with an arrow). The measurement of its distance shows it to be some 12 billion light years away (assuming the current best guess of the age of the universe of about 14 billion years).

Provider: Hubble Space Telescope | ESA

Image Source: https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/opo9817b/

Curator: ESA/Hubble, Garching bei München, Germany

Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License