A possible bright ultraviolet flash from a galaxy at redshift z ≈ 11

ABSTRACT In the optical sky, minutes-duration transients from cosmological distances are rare. Known objects that give rise to such transients include gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), the most

luminous explosions in the Universe1 that have been detected at redshifts as high as _z_ ≈ 9.4 (refs. 2,3,4). These high-redshift GRBs and their associated emission can be used to probe the

star formation and reionization history in the era of cosmic dawn. Here, we report a near-infrared transient with an observed duration shorter than 245 s that is coincident with the luminous

star-forming galaxy GN-z11 at _z_ ≈ 11. The telluric absorption shown in the near-infrared spectrum indicates that its origin is above the Earth’s atmosphere. We can rule out the

possibility of known man-made objects or moving objects in the Solar System on the basis of the observational information and our current understanding of the properties of these objects. As

some long-duration GRBs are associated with a bright ultraviolet or optical flash5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14, we investigate the possibility that the detected signal arose from a rest-frame

ultraviolet flash associated with a long GRB from GN-z11. Despite the very low probability of being a GRB, we find that the spectrum, brightness and duration of the transient are consistent

with such an interpretation. Our result may suggest that long GRBs can be produced as early as 420 million years after the Big Bang. Access through your institution Buy or subscribe This is

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AFTERMATH OF THE EXTRAGALACTIC TRANSIENT AT2018COW Article 13 December 2021 MULTIWAVELENGTH CONSTRAINTS ON THE ORIGIN OF A NEARBY REPEATING FAST RADIO BURST SOURCE IN A GLOBULAR CLUSTER

Article Open access 26 November 2024 AN OPTICAL–ULTRAVIOLET FLARE WITH ABSOLUTE AB MAGNITUDE OF −39.4 DETECTED IN GRB 220101A Article 26 June 2023 DATA AVAILABILITY The Keck MOSFIRE data of

this work are publicly available from the Keck Observatory Archive (https://www2.keck.hawaii.edu/koa/public/koa.php). The long GRBs used for a simulation are publicly available from a GRB

archive website (https://swift.gsfc.nasa.gov/archive/grb_table.html/). Source data are provided with this paper. Other data of this study are available from the corresponding authors upon

reasonable request. CODE AVAILABILITY The Keck MOSFIRE data were reduced using a publicly available data reduction pipeline (https://github.com/Keck-DataReductionPipelines/MosfireDRP). The

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Article  Google Scholar  Download references ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We acknowledge support from the National Science Foundation of China (grant nos. 11721303, 11890693 and 11991052), the National

Key R&D Program of China (grant nos. 2016YFA0400702 and 2016YFA0400703) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) through a China–Chile Joint Research Fund (grant no. 1503) administered

by the CAS South America Center for Astronomy. N.K. acknowledges support from the JSPS (grant no. 15H03645). The data presented herein were obtained at the W. M. Keck Observatory, which is

operated as a scientific partnership among the California Institute of Technology, the University of California and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The Observatory was

made possible by the generous financial support of the W. M. Keck Foundation. We wish to recognize and acknowledge the very significant cultural role and reverence that the summit of Mauna

Kea has always had within the indigenous Hawaiian community. We are most fortunate to have the opportunity to conduct observations from this mountain. This research has made use of data

provided by CalSky.com and by the IAU’s Minor Planet Center. AUTHOR INFORMATION AUTHORS AND AFFILIATIONS * Kavli Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Peking University, Beijing, China

Linhua Jiang, Shu Wang & Luis C. Ho * Department of Astronomy, School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing, China Linhua Jiang, Shu Wang & Luis C. Ho * Department of Physics and

Astronomy, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, NV, USA Bing Zhang * Department of Astronomy, Graduate School of Science, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan Nobunari Kashikawa * Optical and

Infrared Astronomy Division, National Astronomical Observatory, Tokyo, Japan Nobunari Kashikawa * Department of Astronomy, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China Zheng Cai * Steward

Observatory, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA Eiichi Egami * Observatories of the Carnegie Institution for Science, Pasadena, CA, USA Gregory Walth * School of Astronomy and Space

Science, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China Yi-Si Yang & Bin-Bin Zhang * Key Laboratory of Modern Astronomy and Astrophysics (Nanjing University), Ministry of Education, Nanjing, China

Yi-Si Yang & Bin-Bin Zhang * CAS Key Laboratory of Planetary Sciences, Purple Mountain Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing, China Hai-Bin Zhao * CAS Center for Excellence

in Comparative Planetology, Hefei, China Hai-Bin Zhao Authors * Linhua Jiang View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Shu Wang View author

publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Bing Zhang View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Nobunari

Kashikawa View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Luis C. Ho View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google

Scholar * Zheng Cai View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Eiichi Egami View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed 

Google Scholar * Gregory Walth View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Yi-Si Yang View author publications You can also search for this author

inPubMed Google Scholar * Bin-Bin Zhang View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Hai-Bin Zhao View author publications You can also search for

this author inPubMed Google Scholar CONTRIBUTIONS L.J. designed the programme, carried out the Keck observations, analysed the data, and prepared the manuscript. S.W. and G.W. reduced the

Keck images. B.Z. proposed the theoretical interpretation and helped to prepare the manuscript. N.K. assisted in the design of the programme and carrying out the observations. L.C.H. helped

to prepare the manuscript. Y.-S.Y. and B.-B.Z. searched the archival Fermi GBM data. H.-B.Z. searched the IAU Minor Planet Center database. All authors helped with the scientific

interpretations and commented on the manuscript. CORRESPONDING AUTHORS Correspondence to Linhua Jiang or Bing Zhang. ETHICS DECLARATIONS COMPETING INTERESTS The authors declare no competing

interests. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION PEER REVIEW INFORMATION _Nature Astronomy_ thanks Dieter Hartmann and the other, anonymous, reviewers for their contribution to the peer review of this

work. PUBLISHER’S NOTE Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. EXTENDED DATA EXTENDED DATA FIG. 1 LINE WIDTH OF

THE GN-Z11-FLASH 2D SPECTRUM IN THE SPATIAL DIRECTION. (A) Comparison with a reference star. Each of the 10 blue profiles (centered at _x_ = 10) is the best Gaussian fit to an observed

profile at one wavelength position. The observed profile is the stack of 30 individual profiles along the wavelength direction. The 10 black profiles (also centered at _x_ = 10) are the

best-fitted profiles at the same positions for a bright reference star on a neighboring slit. The profiles are normalized so that the peak values are about 10. The insets show parts of the

2D spectrum centered at 2.15 and 2.25 μm, respectively. (B) Line profiles of an alignment star. The black profile presents a slit centered on the brightest pixel. The orange, blue, and green

profiles present three slits that are off the center by +2, +3, and +4 pixels, respectively. The profiles are normalized so that the peak values are about 10. SOURCE DATA SOURCE DATA FIG. 1

Source data for Fig. 1. SOURCE DATA FIG. 2 Source data for Fig. 2. RIGHTS AND PERMISSIONS Reprints and permissions ABOUT THIS ARTICLE CITE THIS ARTICLE Jiang, L., Wang, S., Zhang, B. _et

al._ A possible bright ultraviolet flash from a galaxy at redshift _z_ ≈ 11. _Nat Astron_ 5, 262–267 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-020-01266-z Download citation * Received: 14 April

2020 * Accepted: 04 November 2020 * Published: 14 December 2020 * Issue Date: March 2021 * DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-020-01266-z SHARE THIS ARTICLE Anyone you share the following

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