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Hubble Finds a Galaxy 12.8 Billion Years Old
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Hubble's Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS) has discovered the 12.8B year old galaxy now known as A1689-zD1. Using gravitational lensing of the massive Abell 1689 cluster of galaxies, they were able to find a surprisingly bright young galaxy from only 700 million years after the Big Bang, during the cosmic 'dark ages.' Researchers are itching to study the object with the upcoming Atacama Large Millimeter Array (to go online in 2012) and James Webb Space Telescope (to launch in 2013)."
a desire for us to get off its lawn.
I for one welcome our new Galactic Overlords.
Can you say, "we totally made this up to continue getting funding, remember to plug the new Telescope we're launching soon."
//TODO: Insert catchy phrase
How do they know how old it is anyway?
So, is it old or young?
Even more interesting, I think, is the fact that since it's over 12 billion light years away, it probably doesn't exist anymore. We are in fact looking at ancient history. It could have developed "intelligent" life and they in turn, could've blown it and themselves up in some sort of "ideological" dispute.
And in a few billion years, we'll get to watch it "live".
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
I can't be the only one that was thinking it after reading the title can I?
I only buy pepper spray that's been tested on anti-vivisectionists.
Can't wait until we get those Mass Effect fields so we can check this out first hand.
I won't bother calculating how big a birthday cake would be necessary to hold 12.8 billion candles.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Depending on your particular point in time. See, I'm not far a way from Paris, since I live in Europe. Someone in Tokyo though is pretty far away from Paris. Now you have to understand that 'time' is nothing more than another dimension. The only difference is that so far we only know how to move in one direction. So if something is far away from you in time, this could mean it's either in the future or very, very old, from your point of view.
;-)
From our point of view, this galaxy is very old, since it existed (in the form in which we are seeing it today) a looong time ago. But if we take, say the Big Bang as the point in time to relate to, this thing isn't all that old, but rather new, young, so to speak.
Keep in mind though, that we are seeing a very young galaxy now because the light has been traveling a while. Sort of like... I take a picture of me and then send it to India. Because of the crude nature of the Indian postal system (and the ones in between), you will only receive this picture one month or so after it was taken. So I might have grown a beard. You are seeing a young galaxy, because the medium you're seeing it through took a while to reach us. But in reality, this galaxy is rather old, because it has been growing old ever since the photons that create the image we are seeing today departed from that galaxy to finally interact with our eyes and fulfill their destiny (ouch, that was really a pathetic attempt at making this sound great).
sigh. I'm only a layman, so I might have explained this pretty badly. You might want to take a look at this site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_cone it explains the general concept behind this all. Ah yeah, and relativity is worth a read, too
I'm an infovore...
...the Webb telescope is launched friday '13th, will it go around killing galaxies instead?
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Given how far away it is, and the speed of light, you can calculate how long it took the light to get here. You know it existed that long ago. Subtract from the age of the Universe. That gives you the maximum age of the galaxy, and that's what they're quoting. It could be younger, of course.
I don't know anything about cosmology, let's get that out in the open right away. Astronomy and Astrology are close cousins in my ignorant mind :)
:)
So it's taken the light 12 odd billion years to arrive here, It always makes me wonder whether the galaxy is 12 billion years old, or 12 billion years away - and if it is the latter, does that in any way compare to the former?
Could you conceivably see the big bang with Hubble if the universe is only 13.5 billion years old? Does this mean they know roughly where the universe began and are looking in that direction? If they looked in the other direction, would they run out of things to see because nothing in the universe has traveled out that far yet?
And to see things that happened 12 billion years ago, would you need to look 12 billion years in the other direction from where they actually happened?
Now none of this makes sense
How do they know how old it is?
Because it's so far away?
How do they know it's so far away?
Because of how long its light took to reach us?
How do they know how long it's light took to reach us?
Well, light goes so fast, and it gets pulled this way and that on the way here and uhhhhhhhhh, well, we're totally guessing, OKAY!!!!!!!!
lol
What's a 'large millimeter' when it's at home?
Why not use a small millimeter? Is size really that important?
Max.
...Never discuss these kinds of issues with Americans. The chances of them being religious are extremely high and the odds of them being dementedly devout are too high to risk, unless, of course, you really are looking for that argument.
Even practicing European Catholics are far more openminded about science than most Americans -- and they're certainly more knowledgable about it too.
Disclaimer: I'm not American, European, or religious.
(subject says it all)
They assume the speed of light has been constant over time (a reasonable assumption), and then they can easily calculate both the spatial and temporal distance.
Im wondering is c still a constant over such a large distance? I mean, for one, the light is bent around a galaxy cluster, that will change the distance its travelled. Also, its been shown in the lab that light can be slowed down, could this also have happened. I know the spped of light in a vacuum is a constant, but space isnt really a vacuum, is it? It may be mostly empty, but even a very slight effect would be quite significant over such a distance?
According to U.S. Census reports, in 2001, 14.2% of Americans self-identified as non-religious.
Further, in 2004, 45% of Americans reported accepting some form current evolutionary theory (including "macro" evolution).
So, while that's a minority, it's not a HUGE minority. Roughly every other American you talk to, all else being equal, will support rational inquiry.
I suspect, since this is Slashdot, that those numbers will be skewed slightly in favor of the science, though the crazies try to make up for it by being extremely vocal.
Rather than lump us all into "brainwashed Christian" territory, why don't you try ignoring the crazies when they come out of the woodwork?
Life would be easier if I had the source code.
Unfortunately, you can't really tell the difference between a normal reasonable person and a closet creationist until you're several steps in. It kinda pisses me off, the way the Creationists have adopted the strategy of Intelligent Design and hiding their beliefs as though they're just genuine scientific skeptics with an open mind, when nothing could be further from the truth.
Well, it obviously doesn't piss you off badly enough to question your conception of what is "reasonable".
The reason why the Creationists have adopted that strategy is because that is *precisely* what skepticism exists to do -- undercut and destroy one's reasoned certainty, in order to make room for faith. In fact, that is exactly what modern skepticism's creator, Immanuel Kant, said he was doing, meant to do, and did when he wrote his seminal works.
Every argument made for faith boils down to that exact same sequence as you describe, because it stems from a corrupted conception of reason. Kant sought to save religion from the Enlightenment by undermining it at its root - its understanding of reason. He succeeded, and religion was saved -- but much the worse for the Enlightenment, which was aborted and is now fading away.
He sold us the idea that reason is "limited", that there exists an impenetrable barrier between "things as they are" ("real" reality, the noumenal realm) and "things as they appear" (the "phenomena", which are mere appearances or reflections of what is real), and that reason only deals with the latter.
Thusly, according to Kant, we can never really know things as they are *via reason*. No, to get to "things as they are", you need something else, something that transcends the limitations of reason. You get one guess what *he* thought that something was.
That is the "somehow" which explains the leap from "How can they be sure?" to "Scientists don't really know anything, it's all just belief!" to "Thus any alternative hypothesis I propose is equally viable." To stop that sequence, you must be able to answer the question of "How do we know what we know?" -- and as we endlessly hear on Slashdot from all the scientific skeptical types, we can't know (or "prove") anything, so there isn't even any such question! It's all approximations, models, etc.
If you cannot ultimately know what is real, then you cannot ultimately know what is NOT. You will not be able to rationally distinguish between knowledge and made-up BS. And that is the open door to the creationist; that is how Kant Saved Religion.
Skepticism has always been and will always be the vanguard of faith -- the AIDS virus to the opportunistic infections of cults and religions. It clears its path by undercutting knowledge, disarming those who seek to be rational by means of perpetual doubt passed off as "reasonable" -- thusly consigning knowledge and certainty to the confidently irrational purveyors of made-up BS.
If you want the patch, here are the essentials.
If something is real, it exists (existence exists, and only existence exists); if it exists, it must be of consequence, i.e. it interacts with other real things. It thusly has a "footprint" by which it is knowable. Also, that "footprint" must be unique so that it can be distinguished from the other things that exist -- that is to say, it must have a "signature" or identity.
If existence means to be of consequence, and it is by consequences that something is knowable, it follows that knowability is an attribute of the real -- which means that unknowability can only pertain to the nonexistence of unreality.
Therefore, contrary to Kant, reason has no innate "limit" beside "the sum total of what is real", i.e. existence, the entire universe.
"Unknowable" == "made-up BS", also known as the arbitrary. So much for Kant's made-up "noumenal" BS.
But be careful -- if you keep running with this, y