[6][7] The GRB's redshift was measured to be 0.937,[8] which means that the explosion occurred about 7.5 billion (7.5×109) years ago (the lookback time), and it took the light that long to reach Earth.

[2] The first scientific paper submitted on the event suggested that the GRB could have easily been seen to a redshift of 16 (essentially to the time in the universe when stars were just being formed, well into the age of reionization) from a sub-meter sized telescope equipped with near-infrared filters.

[9] The afterglow of the burst set a new record for the "most intrinsically bright object ever observed by humans in the universe",[2] 2.5 million times brighter than the brightest supernova to date, SN 2005ap.

This allowed an unprecedented examination of the jet structure, which appears to have consisted of a narrowly focused cone and a wider secondary one.

[12] Until this gamma-ray burst event, the galaxy M83, at a distance of about 15 million light years, was the most distant object visible to the naked eye, albeit only under excellent conditions.