GRB 090429B was a gamma-ray burst first detected on 29 April 2009, the second detected that day. Though this burst was detected in 2009, it was not until 2011 that its distance was announced, have a redshift of z=9.4, becoming the most distant GRB known in May 2011, usurping GRB 090423

GRB 090423

GRB 090423 is a gamma-ray burst detected by the Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Mission on April 23, 2009 at 07:55:19 UTC. The afterglow of GRB 090423 was detected in the infrared, and allowed astronomers to determine that the redshift of GRB 090423 is z = 8.2, which makes GRB 090423 the second...

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On 2009 April 29, a five-second-long burst of gamma ray

Gamma ray

Gamma radiation, also known as gamma rays or hyphenated as gamma-rays and denoted as γ, is electromagnetic radiation of high frequency . Gamma rays are usually naturally produced on Earth by decay of high energy states in atomic nuclei...

s from the constellation Canes Venatici

Canes Venatici

Canes Venatici is one of the 88 official modern constellations. It is a small northern constellation that was created by Johannes Hevelius in the 17th century. Its name is Latin for "hunting dogs", and the constellation is often depicted in illustrations as representing the dogs of Boötes the...

 triggered the Burst Alert Telescope on NASA's Swift satellite

Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Mission

The Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Mission consists of a robotic spacecraft called Swift, which was launched into orbit on 20 November 2004, 17:16:00 UTC on a Delta II 7320-10C expendable launch vehicle. Swift is managed by the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, and was developed by an international...

. As with most gamma-ray bursts, this one, designated GRB 090429B, heralded the death of a star some 30 times the Sun's mass

Solar mass

The solar mass , , is a standard unit of mass in astronomy, used to indicate the masses of other stars and galaxies...

 and the likely birth of a new black hole

Black hole

A black hole is a region of spacetime from which nothing, not even light, can escape. The theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently compact mass will deform spacetime to form a black hole. Around a black hole there is a mathematically defined surface called an event horizon that...

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See also