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)."

Comments

The galaxy commented only...

[Anonymous Coward]

a desire for us to get off its lawn.

Re:The galaxy commented only...

[infonography]

it has a Ford Galaxy 500 up on blocks in it's front yard.

Re:The galaxy commented only...

[Raineer]

+10 funny

Re:The galaxy commented only...

[Absimiliard]

The galaxy commented only...a desire for us to get off its lawn. I think you have it backwards.

The galaxy is extremely YOUNG, not old.

It probably wanted us to friend it on MySpace or something.... .... to which the Milky Way (an old galaxy by now) replied "Get off my lawn ya damn kids!"

-abs

And I found a sober Irishman

[coop247]

Can you say, "we totally made this up to continue getting funding, remember to plug the new Telescope we're launching soon."

Do they cut it in half and count the rings?

[patcpong]

How do they know how old it is anyway?

Re:Do they cut it in half and count the rings?

[TheOnlyJuztyn]

Redshift

Re:Do they cut it in half and count the rings?

[jo42]

They look it up in the Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy - Universe Edition.

Re:Do they cut it in half and count the rings?

[Mantaar]

Since c is most likely a constant we can say: something that is x light years away is y years old (actually, x = y for most cases, I think.). How do we measure the distance between our galaxy and another? No rocket science (but [theoretical] astrophysics):

http://hubblesite.org/reference_desk/faq/answer.php.id=45&cat=galaxies

Though I have no idea how exactly they did it this time. That's just the general procedure. According to TFA that's just an estimation and the exact age of the galaxy is yet to be determined; that's what those new telescopes would be useful for.

What's even more interesting though:

The astronomers used a relatively nearby massive cluster of galaxies known as Abell 1689, roughly 2.2 billion light-years away, to magnify the light from the more distant galaxy directly behind it. This natural telescope is called a gravitational lens. Remember: when you're glancing through space, you're not only taking a look at the 3 space dimensions, but the 4th, time, actually starts playing a role. The sun could explode right now and we would only notice it in about 8 minutes...

Re:Do they cut it in half and count the rings?

[Cabriel]

I don't get it. Patcpong seemed to have a genuine question. Mantaar seemed to give a genuine answer. I don't see Creationist claims in there at all.

Re:Do they cut it in half and count the rings?

[Chris Burke]

It's general paranoia based on an old pattern.

It's starts with curiosity: "How do they know how old it is?"
Which gets extended to skepticism: "How could they possibly be sure? Maybe their assumptions are wrong."
Which somehow becomes rejection: "Scientists don't really know anything, it's all just belief!"
Then the gigantic illogical leap: "Thus any alternative hypothesis I propose is equally viable."
And then the 'reveal' which is: "So I bet my spiritual guide book could serve as a physics textbook if you interpreted it literally!"

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.

Though I agree with you, in this case I think this was legitimate curiosity, and the GP was just being paranoid. It won't take that long to tell if I'm wrong. :P

Re:Do they cut it in half and count the rings?

[Sanat]

Good insight.

One thing is though we do not definitely know that the speed of Light in another galaxy is the same as ours. Perhaps each particular area of the universe has its own speed based upon its mass or some other unknown quantity.

Right now we assume it is the same and make measurements based upon it... and that is fine for now. One day we will more fully understand about the other galaxies and may need to make adjustments.

Not long ago it was believed the Sun rotated around the Earth and now we believe that the speed of light in the universe is just like ours. time will tell.

Some of the recent work I have been involved with tends to have some anomalies that are not easily sorted out concerning Light speeds and velocities in these areas.

Re:Do they cut it in half and count the rings?

[SirSlud]

I know what you mean but:

Then the gigantic illogical leap: "Thus any alternative hypothesis I propose is equally viable."

Thats disingenuous. The beliefs of people you or I may disagree with are not formed in any more of a vacuum than our own. In general. Anybody who you believe to be absolutely wrong should never be 'credited' with coming up with a hypothesis you deem incorrect anymore than you should be credited with knowing the right answer. You turn it into a one person versus many issue. The reality of such disagreements is usually just one mass consensus versus another, and that person is just telling you what information they've been handed just the same as you are telling them what information you've been handed.

And then the 'reveal' which is: "So I bet my spiritual guide book could serve as a physics textbook if you interpreted it literally!"

That's just silly. Of course people exist who interpret things that way, but lets not cut off the nose to spite the face. I'm 110% atheist, but the vast majority of those people who pull that 'reveal' have devolved into a kind of detachment from reality that is no different than brilliant disbelievers who fall off the other end, whether it be through political, sexual, or scientific channels. You don't have to believe in God or disbelieve in God to think its counter productive to attempt to portray a weakness for critical thought as being unique to a particular theocracy.

People are a product of what they've been exposed to. Unfortunately, you can't really tell the difference between a normal reasonable person (whatever that means) and somebody you disagree with until you talk to them. Is that any surprise?

Re:Do they cut it in half and count the rings?

[Chris Burke]

Thats disingenuous. The beliefs of people you or I may disagree with are not formed in any more of a vacuum than our own.

Whatever. I'm talking about a rhetorical device. Pardon my lax use of pronouns.

Unfortunately, you can't really tell the difference between a normal reasonable person (whatever that means) and somebody you disagree with until you talk to them. Is that any surprise?

You don't get what I'm saying. With your average person who is curious and/or skeptical of science, they're asking these questions sincerely because they don't know, and while they may not accept the answers, nevertheless the question was sincere. The hidden Creationist isn't sincere, those questions are nothing but a setup with which to introduce their pre-conceived ideas. They don't come right out and say "I believe the earth was created 6,000 years ago" or whatever their specific flavor of Creationism is, because that simply won't be treated seriously in a science-aware forum like this one. Instead they start by trying to poke holes in science as a way to create a gap with which to introduce their ideas, and it can take many back-and-forth steps before they get to the point where they'll stop feigning like they don't know the answers and reveal what they have actually believed all along.

Like Intelligent Design itself, it's a calculated attempt to introduce Creationism in an under-handed manner. If they were being up-front and honest, it wouldn't take long at all to tell that they are a Creationist because they wouldn't go through the trouble of the whole pretend-skeptic routine in the first place. Being a Christian myself, I've met plenty of up-front and honest Creationists, and it's completely different. There's no game being played, just honest discussion of beliefs.

Re:Do they cut it in half and count the rings?

[goarilla]

my question ? where do they get the reference light to base their redshift off
it could just be a very HOT star eg a star with some odd materials and thus more red light
can someone please elaborate

Re:Do they cut it in half and count the rings?

[Barradrewda]

The Discovery Institute is almost certainly completely fuckered though, and likely bigger idiots than you (which implies bigger idiots than me). Maybe we can help them together? Just kidding. I fucking hate you.


I for one welcome this less "fucking idiotic" overlord. Thank you for this post.

Re:Do they cut it in half and count the rings?

[ricree]

I don't know the answer, but I'm pretty sure it's been discussed somewhere on the astronomy podcast. At any rate, it's a great show for anyone who is interested in astronomy. I'd especially recommend listening to their series on the objects of the solar system.
Astronomy Cast

Re:Do they cut it in half and count the rings?

[tweak13]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redshift

The picture at the top of that page is a pretty good explanation. Basically you just take the absorption lines of some known materials and compare them to the absorption lines seen in whatever is being observed.

Re: Do they cut it in half and count the rings?

[Black Parrot]

I'm getting pretty sick of all the fucking idiots like you here on Slashdot. It's pretty fucking basic: just because a class of Creationists have decided to call their flavor of belief Intelligent Design does not mean that the class of people who recognize Intelligent Design as a functioning and present method of speciation and evolution are actually Creationists. Intelligent Design is prima facie nonsense. It doesn't offer any functioning method for anything, let alone one that actually works.

And it's creationism, pure and simple. Scratch an IDiot and you get an evangelical. Or a Republican who wants the evangelical vote.

Re:Do they cut it in half and count the rings?

[superdave80]

They originally tried to looked it up in Hitchiker's Guide to The Galaxy - Home Basic Edition, but received an error of, "Sorry, that information is not available in this edition. Would you like to upgrade?"

Re: Do they cut it in half and count the rings?

[Black Parrot]

I sort of figure his example of the Basset Hound is, prima facie, proof that you're a fucking idiot. It obviously works. I mean, the hound is no wolf. I think there's a good point there. And what does that point have to do with the Intelligent Design movement, which consists of nothing but bogus proofs that evolution couldn't have done this or that, followed by equally bogus conclusions that "somebody" must have done it instead?

Did you learn where basset hounds came from by doing a CSI calculation?

Re:Do they cut it in half and count the rings?

[digitalchinky]

Since c is most likely a constant we can say: something that is x light years away is y years old (actually, x = y for most cases, I think.

It seems illogical and improbable that X would equal Y. An object 4 light years away isn't necessarily 4 years old, it could just as easily be 4 billion years old. Unless the light from this galaxy 12.8 billion light years away just happened to come in to view on the Hubble sensor where a few moments before there was nothing, then that light could have easily been streaming past us for billions of years already. Who's to know?

I really don't understand the whole 'age of the universe' thing - there are still a lot of assumptions in those equations.

Re:Do they cut it in half and count the rings?

[Chris Burke]

I'm pleased to have a Basset Hound living in my home. Survival of the fittest did not make him. Humans did. Through the selection mechanism of Intelligent Design. Get the fuck over it. Have you ever seen a corn field? Is it shocking that the modern female is fucking sexy compared to the troglodytic premodern?

And do you believe that this same mechanism accounts for all genetic diversity? Because if you are only talking about selective breeding, then guess what? That's NOT capital-I-D Intelligent Design, you dumb fuck. That's "selective breeding", or in the case of attractive females "sexual selection", both about as mundane and mainstream of theories as evolution itself and not having special theory names.

What you're doing is like me going "Der, Evolution isn't necessarily about random changes altering populations through natural selection you moron! To me Evolution is about species wanting to change because they feel in their hearts that they can be better!" No, wrong, that's not what evolution is. And "Intelligent Design" is not the theory that some things on earth were designed by an (our) intelligence. It's a theory that is an alternate explanation for the diversity of all species. Though I give it more respect than it deserves by calling it a theory.

Look, it's like this: there is no God but there is Intelligent Design.

There is no Intelligent Design without God. Not because you have to believe in God to believe in ID, but because it naturally follows. The primary theorem of ID is that our intelligence is to complex to have arisen naturally, and must have been created by some other intelligence. Well where did that intelligence come from? The same ideas of ID suggest that it couldn't have arisen naturally, so there must be another designer... and so on. Now, if you're religious, that's easy, the original Intelligent Designer is a supernatural being with no beginning or end and thus no need for a creater.

If you're not religious and believe in Intelligent Design, then you're just a giant retard.


And furthermore, there is no difference between a normal reasonable person and a "closet creationist"

Of course there is. A reasonable person, including a reasonable Creationist, is up-front with their beliefs. Lying, duplicitous douchebags who inherently know that their position is not reasonable, but want to trick you into accepting it anyway, feign open-minded skepticism that suddenly turns into evangelism.


Anyway, in summary, you're a fucking idiot--I on the other hand, am quite a bit more gifted and talented than you--but hey bud, you can do better, and I'd like to help you.

Of course you are! Your mom was right, you're special!

Let me help you: there is, unequivocally, at least some flavor of intelligent design in our world.

And with no capital letters there, the answer is: duh! The computers we're using right now were "intelligently designed" by humans. That's not "Intelligent Design". You should at least know what something is before you defend it, jackass.

I fucking hate you.

Aw, but I love you! I think you're very stupid, but I still love you.

It'd be really, really hilarious to me if your whole retarded polemic was because I used the phrase "Intelligent Design" in obvious reference to the non-scientific alternate theory for speciation, while in your personal view there is something that could be called "intelligent design" but isn't what is commonly called -- by anyone -- ID.

Re:Do they cut it in half and count the rings?

[Vidar Leathershod]

It seems to me you are mixing Creationists with Young Earthers. I suppose there is overlap, though I don't think any use a 6,000 year old Earth.

To address the article though, yes, the 12.8 billion year figure is pulled out of someone's ass. Granted, there was some math involved, but there is far too little data to calculate the actual age of the earth, never mind anything else. Those with a chip on their shoulder will of course take offense to the blanket disbelief of the "scientific consensus".

Realists know that betting against the current science when it regards dates is about as safe as a bet as you can make. It is 100% guaranteed to be found incorrect, probably within 50 years. Date setters just want attention. If they were intellectually honest, they wouldn't bother.

Re:Do they cut it in half and count the rings?

[Btarlinian]

To address the article though, yes, the 12.8 billion year figure is pulled out of someone's ass. Granted, there was some math involved, but there is far too little data to calculate the actual age of the earth, never mind anything else. Those with a chip on their shoulder will of course take offense to the blanket disbelief of the "scientific consensus".

Realists know that betting against the current science when it regards dates is about as safe as a bet as you can make. It is 100% guaranteed to be found incorrect, probably within 50 years. Date setters just want attention. If they were intellectually honest, they wouldn't bother.

All right here's your person with a chip on his shoulder. Regardless as whether or not you take the calculations behind the age of the universe to be valid, to claim that date-setting is intellectually dishonest is rather stupid. Let's say that 100 years ago, I came up with a model of the universe that resulted in the age of the universe being 300 million years old. Later when evidence is found indicating that there exist objects that are 1 billion years old, my model will clearly be proven to be wrong. If I had never been "intellectually dishonest" by calculating the age of the universe, my model may have never been proven wrong.

These date-setters are basing their ideas on the well-accepted theories that allow much of the modern world to function as it does (i.e., relativity). I'm not claiming that holes will never be found in them. But to claim that no work should be done based on these models would be like saying that Bohr should have never published his model for the atom because it only worked for atoms with one electron.

Re:Do they cut it in half and count the rings?

[Quadraginta]

Some of the recent work I have been involved with tends to have some anomalies that are not easily sorted out concerning Light speeds and velocities in these areas.

Good Golly, like what?

If the speed of light is not constant, then physical law (e.g. Maxwell's equations) is not the same everywhere, and energy is not conserved, there is no Second Law of thermodynamics, and basically all hell breaks loose. The speed of light isn't just the speed at which light travels. It's a fundamental constant that appears in all kinds of basic physical laws.

Re:Do they cut it in half and count the rings?

[Trikenstein]

They count it's teeth.
Lot of teeth, it's young.
Few teeth, it's old.
Or a NASCAR or wrestling fan.

Re:Do they cut it in half and count the rings?

[Cassius Corodes]

I'm sure that in the papers that are released along with these findings there are sorts of ifs buts and maybes - its usually the news reports that then add some "certainty" to the findings.

Just because they are not 100% sure it is exactly that year dosen't mean they shouldn't release the findings. They are important anyway as they build up our understanding of the universe.

I'm not sure if you have mistyped or you have confused the meaning of the article, but its got nothing to do with the age of the earth (which is estimated to be about 4 billion btw).

Young earth folk are a subset of creationists that are very popular in the US. They have their own pseudo-scientific literature on how exactly things got done in 6000 years - as well as a bizzare obsession with proving that noah's ark is possible.

Re:Do they cut it in half and count the rings?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your usage of "illogical" is not justified here. Under one definition of "viable", it is perfectly logical to go to step 4. Without defining "viable" your point is lost. But of course you define it how a scientist would, while someone else might define it as a religious person would. And therein lies the rub.

You can neither prove that the creationist is "wrong" nor that the scientist is "right". Nor can you prove that the creationist answer is "worse" or that the scientific answer is "better". It depends what you want out of the whole thing.

If you build bridges based on the teachings of the bible, you'll quickly find out that it doesn't work. (Churches have lightning conductors because they do work.) But if you try to use the discoveries of science to pontificate on the philosophical nature of life, you'll quickly find that it doesn't work either. Dawkins is simply wrong on a philosophical level, just as Genesis is simply wrong on an evolutionary level.

A bit of respect on both sides when faced with the fundamental unknowables of the universe would go a long way.

Re:Do they cut it in half and count the rings?

[Branko]

where do they get the reference light to base their redshift

I'm no astronomer, but I think it goes something like this:

Chemical elements "soak up" precise wavelengths, leaving narrow black lines in a spectrum of light. When you compare black lines of a nearby star (say, our Sun) to a lines in a spectrum of a (sufficiently) distant star, you'll notice that they look similar, but "translated" (due to a redshift). The rate or translation will give you a clue about the distance.

Please somebody correct me if I'm wrong.

Re:Do they cut it in half and count the rings?

[Branko]

Not long ago it was believed the Sun rotated around the Earth and now we believe that the speed of light in the universe is just like ours.

However, they were believed in for a drastically different reasons. The first was due unwillingness of organized religion to accept the evidence, while the second is because of the willingness of the scientific community to accept the evidence.

As a consequence, if evidence changes, we will change our conclusions about the speed of light.

Re: Do they cut it in half and count the rings?

[Artifakt]

The point is, quite serious proponents of evolution have said "ALL biological organisms gained their form from natural selection." (The preceding was an exact quote from a speech delivered by Richard Dawkins). 'Responsible', 'sober', 'rationalist' scientists really are going so far as to claim evolution is a universal principle, applying to the whole cosmos, and trying to extend the metaphor of selection to 'Stellar Evolution'. Natural selection is being described as a single overwhelming principle that admits no exceptions what-so-ever, anywhere in the field of observation that is science. Biologists are telling Astrophysicists that they know more about Cosmology than the Physicists do, and telling Geologists that their calculations for the age of the Earth must be wrong because they disagree with Biology.
        Natural selection may explain Wolves, but it simply doesn't explain Basset Hounds. We know of cases of artificial selection, and we know that the very non-supernatural artificer there has the property of intelligence (unless you are claiming that humans are non-sentient). At this point, we have absolute proof that some forms of selection involve intelligence, we know of both natural selection and an existing alternative, and a group of articulate scientists who are so committed to their theory that they are denying that fact, is calling another group biased.
        I reiterate, we know of at least two sources for biological design, and we know of ways to distinguish at least some of their effects. A hypothesis that there could be a third source can't just be dismissed by the argument that it violates Occam, because we already know of a reason to multiply hypothesis - that is the single explanation from Natural Selection doesn't account for all cases. It can't be dismissed by the counter-argument that intelligence isn't sometimes a necessary attribute for a source of biological design either, because we know of one concrete, non-supernatural source where intelligence clearly is a necessary factor.
        I'd gladly debate some issues relating to ID with you, if you can demonstrate an open mind, but I think I have every right to insist on the demonstration first, if you are one of those people who are insisting that Basset Hounds don't prove the existence of artificial selection. I won't waste my time debating anything if you are of the opinion that humans themselves don't possess intelligence.

Re:Do they cut it in half and count the rings?

[wanerious]

It's pretty easy to tell the difference between a true cosmological redshift, where all the spectral lines are shifted by some scale percentage, and red light from a star in our own galaxy that does not have redshifted spectral lines. Red stars look red because most of their light in the visible part of the spectrum is red, not because the spectral lines have been shifted.

Re:Do they cut it in half and count the rings?

[SilentBob0727]

The Hitchhiker's Guide is trying to access C:\Program Files\

allow | deny

Re: Do they cut it in half and count the rings?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, but Natural Selection and animal husbandry are not mutually exclusive. Someone in the past noticed that, if you take two wolves, one with a dark coat and one with a tendancy to tolerate humans, and breed them together, you will eventually get a wolf with both traits. Natural Selection does the same thing in a brute-force way. If the tendancy to tolerate humans helps the wolf survive and have offspring, then the wolf species as a whole improves slightly. If it gets the wolf killed before it has offspring, then again the wolf species is improved slightly, as the human toleration gene has been shown to be detrimental.

Animal Husbandry is where we look for certain traits and breed for them, rather than allow nature to take its course with random pairings. The problem with this is that domesticated animals tend to need human intervention to survive over the long term. Especially animals which have been bread for "beauty" rather than work. Purebread Golden Retrievers have an incredibly high incidence of hip dysplasia due to this type of breeding, and tend to not live as long or comfortably as their mutt relations in the same type of household.

"Human design" is just a much more efficient version of Natural Selection.

Re:Do they cut it in half and count the rings?

[spun]

His whole rant supports your theory. The poster you replied to has a hidden agenda. It is an attack against science. The basics of propaganda are: you never state your central thesis. You merely proceed as if it were true. His basic thesis is a core component of intelligent design, and it goes like this: "Complex things like cars and televisions don't just happen. They need a designer. Therefore, all complex things must need a designer. Basset hounds need a designer, there's no wild basset hound in nature. Therefore, other animals must have had a designer as well." It's not good logic, but it's how many people think.

I also think he's lying when he claims no belief in God. Maybe not the God of Christianity, but I'm sure he believes in some sort of Designer.

Re:Do they cut it in half and count the rings?

[khallow]

It seems to me you are mixing Creationists with Young Earthers. I suppose there is overlap, though I don't think any use a 6,000 year old Earth.

It doesn't really matter though clearly the young Earthers are a special case of Creationists. Neither belief system is based on observation of the universe. And I have run into sincere believers in a 6,000 year old Earth and universe.

To address the article though, yes, the 12.8 billion year figure is pulled out of someone's ass. Granted, there was some math involved, but there is far too little data to calculate the actual age of the earth, never mind anything else. Those with a chip on their shoulder will of course take offense to the blanket disbelief of the "scientific consensus".

So how wrong do you think they are? Care to give a range? By an order of magnitude or more? And I'm puzzled by your inclusion of Earth in this. There's considerable data indicating that the Earth is around 4.5 billion years old, using radioactive decay and samples from numerous solar system bodies including asteroids, the Moon, and even Mars. Further, the estimated age of the Sun is consistent with this as well (it can be estimated both by it's relative size, mass, and temperature, as well as by it's lithium content).

Realists know that betting against the current science when it regards dates is about as safe as a bet as you can make. It is 100% guaranteed to be found incorrect, probably within 50 years. Date setters just want attention. If they were intellectually honest, they wouldn't bother.

Nonsense. This isn't a test with "correct" and "incorrect" answers. How incorrect do you think these dates will turn out to be? Further, why shouldn't they estimate date? I don't see your logic here.

Re:Do they cut it in half and count the rings?

[vrmlguy]

Lots of reputable physicists have speculated that the fundamental physical constants have varied over the life of the Universe, although those theories do tend to get knocked down pretty quickly. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_speed_of_light for an overview.

On a related note, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Rip speculates that gravity may not work at distances over 46.5e9 light years, and that that distance is decreasing over time. If true, then eventually "all hell breaks loose".

Re:Do they cut it in half and count the rings?

[Chris Burke]

Your usage of "illogical" is not justified here. Under one definition of "viable", it is perfectly logical to go to step 4. Without defining "viable" your point is lost. But of course you define it how a scientist would, while someone else might define it as a religious person would. And therein lies the rub.

It's perfectly valid and justified, because the submarine-Creationist is attempting to make a scientific argument in order to debunk science to create an opportunity for them to inject Creationism as equally "viable" from a "should-be-taught-in-science-class" standpoint. So they've chosen to enter the scientific realm and are subject to science's definition of "logical".

If you build bridges based on the teachings of the bible, you'll quickly find out that it doesn't work. (Churches have lightning conductors because they do work.) But if you try to use the discoveries of science to pontificate on the philosophical nature of life, you'll quickly find that it doesn't work either. Dawkins is simply wrong on a philosophical level, just as Genesis is simply wrong on an evolutionary level.

I'm well aware of this fact. I'm a Christian who believes in God and Jesus as my savior and that for understanding our spiritual selves God and religion are the path, yet at the same time for understanding our physical world I believe the scientific method is better than a literal interpretation of a metaphorical creation story written by and for people thousands of years ago.

Science and religion can coexist because they deal with different aspects of life, and many people, including myself, have no problem with this. But that's not the kind of person I'm talking about. I'm talking about someone who does not believe they can coexist, and is thus making a calculated effort to replace actual science with their own religious beliefs draped in pseudo-scientific trappings. I'm talking about people who perceive the Theory of Evolution as a threat, and are thus attacking it and trying to keep it from being taught to children.

A bit of respect on both sides when faced with the fundamental unknowables of the universe would go a long way.

I do not nor do I feel I should have any respect for someone who relies on trickery and subterfuge to discredit others ideas, and to present their ideas as something other than what they are. When a Creationist lies about their beliefs and intentions in a calculated attempt to make their belief system seem like a viable scientific alternative worthy to be taught in science class, respect is the last thing that person should be given.

This isn't 1st century Rome, or the USSR. There's no legitimate reason for a Christian to hide their beliefs. As a Christian, I am particularly disgusted by those who think lying about being a Christian in any way furthers the cause.

Re:Do they cut it in half and count the rings?

[Grishnakh]

You can neither prove that the creationist is "wrong" nor that the scientist is "right". Nor can you prove that the creationist answer is "worse" or that the scientific answer is "better". It depends what you want out of the whole thing.

If you build bridges based on the teachings of the bible, you'll quickly find out that it doesn't work. (Churches have lightning conductors because they do work.) But if you try to use the discoveries of science to pontificate on the philosophical nature of life, you'll quickly find that it doesn't work either. Dawkins is simply wrong on a philosophical level, just as Genesis is simply wrong on an evolutionary level.

A bit of respect on both sides when faced with the fundamental unknowables of the universe would go a long way.

This is total crap.

Scientists aren't running around trying to push science as an alternative to philosophy; they're simply gathering evidence for physical, real-world things, making theories based on the evidence, and testing those theories. That's how science works.

It's the religionists who have declared war on science, not the other way around. The religionists are the ones who are trying to push their "philosophy" (if you can really call it that) as an alternative to science. Sure, churches may use lightning rods because they work, but since evolution mainly deals with things in the far past which can't be easily backed up with experiments, and since this directly contradicts the writings in their holy books, they attack it. If the Bible said that atoms couldn't be split, they'd probably be denying that nuclear weapons exist.

I'm sure the scientists will be happy to start respecting the religionists when the religionists stop trying to destroy science.

Re:Do they cut it in half and count the rings?

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

The "reference" lines are your own local equipment in the lab, or our own sun. It's relativity, of course. There are no privleged points of view, and this is the other galaxy relative to our own. To them, of course, we would look equally far away and shifted.

Re:Do they cut it in half and count the rings?

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Hehe, again, it goes something like this:

- Light could have a different speed elsewhere.
- I'm pretty sure we'll find that out.
- See? The age of the universe really could be 6000 years just like the Bible says!

Re:Do they cut it in half and count the rings?

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

> To address the article though, yes, the 12.8 billion year figure is
> pulled out of someone's ass.

It has far less ass all over it than "6000 years because The Bible says so."

Re:Do they cut it in half and count the rings?

[Alyred]

I'm not an astrophysicist, but I'm guessing that due to analysing the light received from those distant objects, and calculating using redshift, they can determine (or rather, make a very educated calculation) the average age of the materials that make up the galaxy.

Again, just a guess.

Re: Do they cut it in half and count the rings?

[Copid]

Natural selection may explain Wolves, but it simply doesn't explain Basset Hounds.

Without knowing beforehand that basset hounds are a product of selective breeding, how would you tell the difference?

Re:Do they cut it in half and count the rings?

[Quadraginta]

Well, speculating about c varying during the lifetime of the Universe is quite different than speculating that it varies from galaxy to galaxy, but yes, I've heard this.

I even have a theory of my own! Suppose c begins at infinity and decrease to 0. When c is infinity, then there is no distance dimension, since everything happens everywhere at once. There is only time. The Universe "occupies" a point, in the sense that it occupies anything at all. That is, we've the primordial Big Bang.

As soon as c decreases from infinity, distance acquires meaning, and things can happen here but not there. And as c gets lower and lower, the time it takes for signals to get from here to there increases, i.e. the Universe expands.

When c falls to zero, there is no more time dimension, there is only space. Nothing ever changes, because each individual particle (or generic degree of freedom) is locked into utter isolation, unable to interact with anything else.

We can also finally explain the Second Law of thermodynamics: the Universe begins in a pure quantum state, since it has perfect communication over its entirety. It has an entropy of zero. As c falls, larger and larger chunks of it fall out of communication, and it begins to take on more of the character of a mixed state. That is, entropy begins to take on meaning, at least over large distances, and the entropy of the Universe rises above zero. The further c falls, the smaller the chunks that don't communicate with each other, and the higher the entropy. When c reaches zero, each and every degree of freedom can be in any quantum state -- because the requirement of symmetry or antisymmetry no longer applies, and because conservation of energy can no longer be meaningfully enforced -- and the entropy of the Universe reaches its theoretical maximum. Voila! The Second Law appears at intermediate times.

Send $1.50 for my pamphlet which explains it all, and also tells you who really killed John Kennedy and how to make $1,000 a day operating your own home business. Operators are standing by!

Re:Do they cut it in half and count the rings?

[doxology]

Nah, you just have to enable the right repository.

Re:Do they cut it in half and count the rings?

[Bob-taro]

Yeah, redshift, but even your linked article casts doubt on it's accuracy:

The Hubble law's linear relationship between distance and redshift assumes that the rate of expansion of the universe is constant. However, when the universe was much younger, the expansion rate, and thus the Hubble "constant", was larger than it is today. For more distant galaxies, then, whose light has been travelling to us for much longer times, the approximation of constant expansion rate fails, and the Hubble law becomes a non-linear integral relationship and dependent on the history of the expansion rate since the emission of the light from the galaxy in question. Observations of the redshift-distance relationship can be used, then, to determine the expansion history of the universe and thus the matter and energy content.

While it was long believed that the expansion rate has been continuously decreasing since the big-bang, recent observations of the redshift-distance relationship using Type Ia supernovae have suggested that in comparatively recent times the expansion rate of the universe has begun to accelerate.

Maybe we need a new law -- the farther away an object is, the more assumptions we have to make to pretend we know anything about it. Another thing I always wondered about redshift - what if the object in question is itself moving at a high speed unrelated to the apparently uniform "expansion" we see with other objects? Wouldn't that affect the amount of red shift and throw off the distance estimate?

Re:Do they cut it in half and count the rings?

[DocHoncho]

You can read the booklet online for some lolz:

http://www.gnmagazine.org/booklets/EV/

Re:Do they cut it in half and count the rings?

[Vidar Leathershod]

But the point is that it doesn't matter if 6,000 years is wrong, or 13,000 is wrong or 1 billion, or 12.8 billion. Wrong is wrong, and trying to say "it's the best we have" is no justification for saying, "yep, 12.8 billion years. Suck it, Bible-thumpers!"

I heard a very nice debate on NPR where Scientists and Creationists who believe in evolution, etc. were having it out over whether religion and science can co-exist peacefully. A great point was made by one party (couldn't listen long enough to find out which) who stated that Science was great, but Scientism was damaging to the furtherance of knowledge.

Re:Do they cut it in half and count the rings?

[Vidar Leathershod]

No, these date-setters are basing their "dates" on other dates created by other date-setters, and thus when one of the other dates gets a make-over, all sorts of other stuff gets a new date, if anyone bothers to pay attention.

It's intellectually dishonest because no reasonable person could possibly believe that they can calculate the age of a distant object with any precision with the knowledge we currently possess. They are attention-seeking deviants, and paper shouldn't be wasted on their effort to gain said attention.

Re:Do they cut it in half and count the rings?

[Vidar Leathershod]

No, nothing to do with the Earth, nor do I actually care how old anything is. In fact, I would say that no one should care philosophically, as it has no bearing on anything regarding religion AFAIAC. If you believe in God, that belief should not be shaken because you cannot pin down the Earth's birthday.

"ust because they are not 100% sure it is exactly that year dosen't mean they shouldn't release the findings."

Actually, they aren't sure at all. So they shouldn't. You say 100% as if they might be close. They aren't.

Like others on /., you seem to be arguing *against* young earthers. Who cares. I am saying these other dorks have no defense for their wacky figures either.

Re:Do they cut it in half and count the rings?

[Vidar Leathershod]

"So how wrong do you think they are? Care to give a range?"

I don't claim to know. I'm saying they don't.

"here's considerable data indicating that the Earth is around 4.5 billion years old, using radioactive decay and samples from numerous solar system bodies including asteroids, the Moon, and even Mars. Further, the estimated age of the Sun is consistent with this as well (it can be estimated both by it's relative size, mass, and temperature, as well as by it's lithium content)"

I'm not actually addressing the Earth's age. I don't actually care how old it is, though I'm sure the 4.5 billion year figure is wrong, too. Do you really think that 50 years from now, people will still think the Earth is 4.5 billion years old? How old did they think the Earth was 50 years ago? And you can't say 4,499,999,950 years :)

What I am addressing is the even more ridiculous, given the exponentially smaller set of data we can obtain, setting of the 12.8 billion year old figure for the galaxy in question.

As far as "nonsense" is concerned, that's exactly what setting a date is. You have no position for what things looked like even 200 years ago, and you have way too little data to extrapolate from it even if you did. Science is actually about learning through observation and testing, not by guesswork and bold, unsubstantiated claims.

Re:Do they cut it in half and count the rings?

[khallow]

I don't claim to know. I'm saying they don't.

That's not an answer. It's not a two state problem where the guess is right or wrong, or someone knows or doesn't know. For example, a 1% error in the estimate of the age of Earth is far different from a six orders of magnitude error (like the young Earthers' claims).

I'm not actually addressing the Earth's age. I don't actually care how old it is, though I'm sure the 4.5 billion year figure is wrong, too. Do you really think that 50 years from now, people will still think the Earth is 4.5 billion years old? How old did they think the Earth was 50 years ago? And you can't say 4,499,999,950 years :)

I think there's a high probability (greater than 50%) that yes, the accepted estimate of Earth's age remains near 4.5 billion years.

What I am addressing is the even more ridiculous, given the exponentially smaller set of data we can obtain, setting of the 12.8 billion year old figure for the galaxy in question.

"Exponentially" less data? Doesn't mean a thing. Besides you don't need an equivalent amount of data in order to make an accurate estimate. Quality over quantity.

As I see it, a lot of these age estimates are based on observations that won't be reversed in 50 years. Physics (and related fields like astronomy and geology) has fundamentally changed in the past 50 years. We know many physical constants to many digits of accuracy. We have good models at the cosmological and subatomic levels. We have far better experimental data (including a good look at the cosmological microwave background and lunar rocks). Sure this will all be improved in 50 years, but I don't see a fundamental change happening that will invalidate current estimates to the point that they are considered "wrong".

Re:Do they cut it in half and count the rings?

[Vidar Leathershod]

Sometimes it surprises me how funny people can be without realizing it.

"For example, a 1% error in the estimate of the age of Earth is far different from a six orders of magnitude error (like the young Earthers' claims)"

This assumes that there is only a 1% error. You conveniently didn't answer the question regarding the 4.5 billion year figure as of 50 years ago. What was it then? Was it a 1% difference? By using "1%" you attempt to imply that the difference usually is 1%, which I would like to see explained using historical trends. You see, scientific opinion changes all of the time. But historical data regarding what dates were claimed 50 years ago? Well, a little harder to reverse those without collecting and destroying some very humorous old books and papers.

""Exponentially" less data? Doesn't mean a thing"
"For example, a 1% error in the estimate of the age of Earth is far different from a six orders of magnitude error"

This is such great comedy. You are contradicting your own statement within 2 sentences.

"As I see it", "Sure this will all be improved in 50 years", "but I don't see a fundamental change happening".

Much of your post is one big disclaimer (besides the contradictory parts).

"We know many physical constants to many digits of accuracy" - unconnected, since we have very little data on these distant bodies.

"We have good models at the cosmological and subatomic levels" - translated to 'I believe these models'.

"We have far better experimental data" - on a galaxy far, far away?

"but I don't see a fundamental change happening that will invalidate current estimates to the point that they are considered "wrong"." - 50 years ago, we would have seen a similar argument, from similar people like you.

Thank you for so effectively proving my point. You believe what you are told from a subset of a small group of people, despite the fact that those same groups of people keep doing the same stupid things decade after decade. It's useless information, partially because it is incorrect, and partially because it has no bearing on our life. They are somewhat safe in that no one's life depends on their bogus numbers, and that their audience will ignore the hugely erroneous figure once they come out with a new figure. Wikipedia articles will be updated, and everyone will laud the advance of "science", when in fact no science is involved with date-setting of this nature.

Re:Do they cut it in half and count the rings?

[khallow]

This is absurd. I mentioned those physical constants for a reason. 50 years ago, those were also either poorly known or inconceivable. But no amount of scientific advancement is going to change the value of those constants nor show some massive error in the past 50 years of observation. Why aren't you claiming estimates of those constants are "wrong"?

As I see it, you don't understand the research that has gone into estimate the age of the Earth or cosmological distances. Nor do you demonstrate any knowledge of the error in those calculations other than it has to be "wrong" merely because science has been "wrong" in the past.

It's irrational to claim that a "small group of people" can't accurately measure such things. They have good resources, good data, and are the fraction who actually know what we know about the problem.

Finally, I see you repeat without cause that this isn't science, is incorrect, has no bearing on our life, etc. You're just demonstrating again your ignorance of these problems. Accurating dating of geological periods of the Earth is important to locating mineral resources, earthquake and volcano prediction, and determining what the Earth's climate was like in the past.

Re:Do they cut it in half and count the rings?

[Vidar Leathershod]

"But no amount of scientific advancement is going to change the value of those constants"

Even taking into account the possibility of these "constants" never changing, new data previously "unknown" will change the date.

50 year old estimates were also based on "constants" which are either now not so constant, or don't provide the whole picture. Again, you fail to address the point: How is this date accurate when previous dates were inaccurate? Those previous dates were set using the same arguments you use now.

I don't need to demonstrate an error in calculation, as I am questioning any ability to perform a calculation with so little data. Why don't you show me the data that convinces you that the distant galaxy mentioned is 12.8 billion years old. Show me your raw data that allows you to even apply a mathematical formula.

Is it the perceived size? How was that arrived at? Perceived wobble resulting from certain amounts of gravity? Again, how was that arrived at? Perceived distance? How was that arrived at? Perceived mass? How was that arrived at? Where did each data point come from? You are basing your argument on this huge swaying tower of possibilities, with no foundation in cold hard facts.

Asking me to prove you wrong places the onus on the wrong party. Trends, history, and statistics are on my side, and I will trust those nice solid figures before the wild claims of attention-seekers.

Re:Do they cut it in half and count the rings?

[khallow]

50 year old estimates were also based on "constants" which are either now not so constant, or don't provide the whole picture. Again, you fail to address the point: How is this date accurate when previous dates were inaccurate? Those previous dates were set using the same arguments you use now.

We have more data, better models, and the development of reliable dating techniques like measurements of radioactive decay. 50 years ago, we didn't have that, particularly we had no means to date rocks and meteorites.

I don't need to demonstrate an error in calculation, as I am questioning any ability to perform a calculation with so little data. Why don't you show me the data that convinces you that the distant galaxy mentioned is 12.8 billion years old. Show me your raw data that allows you to even apply a mathematical formula.

You don't know the data. The Hubble's Law data is brightness measurements of supernova type IA out to several hundred million lightyears, very accurate red shift data, the cosmic microwave backgroud data, etc. For the above galaxy, we have the redshift of the target object, the redshift of the intervening galaxy cluster and an estimate of its mass (from rotation and relative movements of the galaxies as determined by redshift data), the position of the lensed images (more verification of the distance of the target beyond the foreground cluster). I consider the 12.8 billion lightyear distance to be very crude, but a reasonable calculation to make.

Asking me to prove you wrong places the onus on the wrong party. Trends, history, and statistics are on my side, and I will trust those nice solid figures before the wild claims of attention-seekers.

Trends are towards more accurate estimates. I'm asking you to show why that trend doesn't work in this case.

Re:Do they cut it in half and count the rings?

[Vidar Leathershod]

From Wikipedia:

"That is, the universe is about 13.7 billion years old,[1] with an uncertainty of 200 million years. However, this age is based on the assumption that the project's underlying model is correct; other methods of estimating the age of the universe could give different ages. Assuming an extra background of relativistic particles, for example, can enlarge the error bars of the WMAP constraint by one order of magnitude"

"Assuming the validity of the models used to determine this age, the residual accuracy yields a margin of error near one percent."

"This is the value currently most quoted by astronomers"

"Calculating the age of the universe is only accurate if the assumptions built into the models being used to estimate it are also accurate"

Then from you: "Trends are towards more accurate estimates. I'm asking you to show why that trend doesn't work in this case"

No, it seems to me that the Trends are towards *different* estimates. Older or younger does not mean more accurate.

Re:Do they cut it in half and count the rings?

[khallow]

No, it seems to me that the Trends are towards *different* estimates. Older or younger does not mean more accurate.

Then that's the source of your error.

Re:Do they cut it in half and count the rings?

[Vidar Leathershod]

I give up. Your steadfast defense of this nice shiny surety that the galaxy in question is 12.8 billion years old is not penetrable. You obviously will always rely on statements of authority to form the beliefs you cling to. Whoever that authority currently is will be the authority whose position you will take.

What an amazing lack of introspection.

Re:Do they cut it in half and count the rings?

[khallow]

You on the other hand, continue to maintain for no reason whatsoever, that some statements are "wrong". When pressed for what you mean by "wrong", you refuse to answer though you do keep mentioning the state of science 50 years ago. Apparently, it was "wrong" then too. All I can say is that parroting scientific authority is likely to accurate (that is within the error bars deemed by said authority) most of the time, but absolutely rejecting certain knowledge is guaranteed to always be in error.

Re:Do they cut it in half and count the rings?

[Raenex]

Science and religion can coexist because they deal with different aspects of life, and many people, including myself, have no problem with this. They haven't always been separate, and the modern phenomenon is just God of the Gaps in action. In fact, there are people that believe "the scientific method is better than a literal interpretation of a metaphorical creation story written by and for people thousands of years ago" when it comes to philosophical questions, such as ethics.

I don't necessarily mean test-tube science, though some of that is possible by looking at behavior of self-organizing systems. I mean trying to reason about ethics without invoking religious texts as an authority.

Re: Do they cut it in half and count the rings?

[Artifakt]

You'd observe both living Basset Hounds and examples found in the fossil record, and note that they are ultra-rapidly selected against in the absence of human support. :-)
      More seriously, breeder's logs, photos from kennel clubs, and such ARE the equivalent of a fossil record. Artificial selection has happened over such an accelerated timespan that the record for the evolution of Basset Hounds is far more complete than for any natural species from its immediate predecessors. Extremely rapid change, at a rate far exceeding known natural examples, is itself likely an indicator of intelligent choice.
      Obviously, if I was just a context-free alien spaceprobe, and a Basset Hound and a Wolf both wandered in sight of my cameras, I'd have a near impossible task recognizing which one was the result of only natural selection. But, there's probably some level of additional knowledge that falls short of knowing all the facts beforehand, yet would still let me derive the conclusion.

Probably Doesn't Exist

[Prien715]

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".

Re:Probably Doesn't Exist

[pizza_milkshake]

Worse yet: editors from their "news for nerds" website posted a similar article 10 billion years ago.

Re:Probably Doesn't Exist

[Mantaar]

So let's call 'dupe' on this one?

Re:Probably Doesn't Exist

[gardyloo]

In our frame of reference, it certainly still exists, in every possible sense of the word. In an inertial frame of reference moving very quickly with respect to us (and it), it may well not even have been formed yet, or have flown apart (or whatever fate awaits/befell it) long ago.

Re:Probably Doesn't Exist

[geekoid]

And people will complain it's a dupe.

Re:Probably Doesn't Exist

[yakiimo]

Please mod parent funny of the year since I don't have points for it :)

Re:Probably Doesn't Exist

[hardburn]

I disagree, on the basis that there exists an objective reality that isn't defined by our perceptions. However, when speaking in terms of astrophysics, it's often convenient to say what's happening now, not 12 billion years ago. Of course, this is one part of a larger debate on perception defining reality.

Re:Probably Doesn't Exist

[IWannaBeAnAC]

But it does make sense to speculate on the properties of some distant object as you would see it if you travelled there by the shortest spacetime distance. For the case of this galaxy it would have aged by around 24 billion years by the time you travelled there, and it is probably would have changed quite considerably in that time.

Alternatively, you could define an inertial reference frame from which the velocity of the earth stays the same magnitude of the velocity of the distant galaxy. This is about the best you can do for a 'laboratory frame' from which to observe both the distant galaxy and the earth on an equal footing. With respect to this inertial frame, the passage of time is well defined (but obviously different in some other inertial frame) and again it makes sense to talk about the evolution of the two systems, even if they are separated by a space-like distance.

You say "Things haven't happened until the light of those things intersects with our reality.". Now, whether something has 'happened' or not is a philosophical point, analogous to whether a tree falling in a forest with no one to hear it makes a sound or not. I'm not going to get into that argument just now. But I think you are taking relativity too literally. The speed of light gives an upper bound on the speed of information transfer, it doesn't pretend to give a speed of which 'reality' propagates. For example, suppose I had an alarm clock that is carefully crafted to emit no EM radiation at all when the alarm goes off. The only way to tell is by listening for the sound of it. So if I put the alarm clock at the other side of the room to you (say, 10 metres away), you have no way to tell whether it has gone off until the sound reaches you, which will be some 1/30th of a second later - much slower than the time taken for light to travel the same distance. Would you then say that the alarm clock ringing hasn't 'intersected your reality' until that time? Equivalently, would you argue that, say at a time 1/60th of a second, that the alarm has yet to start ringing? If not, what is the essential difference to the example of light instead of sound? (Obviously the physical properties of light are different to that of sound, I'm not interested in an argument based on that - what is the difference with respect to your observable reality?)

Re:Probably Doesn't Exist

[MBGMorden]

From my understanding, most galaxies would certainly stick around for more than 13 billion years. New stars form from time to time, and even the Sun (a medium mass star) has a life expectancy of around 10 billion years. Smaller stars tend to shine for longer, with red dwarfs (the most common type of star in the universe) having a life expectancy of hundreds of billions, maybe even trillions of years.

While the specific stars that are giving off the light we see likely aren't there, that galaxy most likely still is. Afterall the Milky Way itself is pretty much just as old and we're still here. The interesting thing about this galaxy is not it's age, but rather than we're seeing it as such an early state and a time.

Re:Probably Doesn't Exist

[khallow]

Actually, if our assumptions about the expansion rate of the universe are correct, that galaxy is beyond the horizon (around 1-1.1 billion years IIRC) of anything we can visit because it would be effectively moving away from us faster than the speed of light due to the expansion of space in between.

Re:Probably Doesn't Exist

[JohnFluxx]

Just to be really nitpicky, it is 12 billions year old, but it's probably closer to 100 billion light years away at the moment (if it exists still)

Re:Probably Doesn't Exist

[Wuhao]

If you're implying that we're bad by comparison, might I remind you that it had been posted on SpaceDigg over a billion years before that?

Re:Probably Doesn't Exist

[Harik]

Ok, that's got me curious - what's the cosmological model for a 13ish billion year old universe, but distances greater then 26bn LY apart? Galaxies traveling at > c for the early part of the universe?

Re:Probably Doesn't Exist

[JohnFluxx]

> Galaxies travelling at > c for the early part of the universe?

Yep. We can see redshift greater than 1 (and hence 'speeds' greater than c) for very distant objects. (That's not entirely circular - there's other ways to measure distance, such as looking at pulsars etc).

There's also the background microwave radiation, whose temperature fits perfectly the predictions for an expanding matter-dominated 13ish billion year universe.

There's also nucleosynthesis. If you treat the early universe as a simple gas, you can work out the expected proportions of all the particles (neutrons, protons, electrons, helium, etc) that would have been created. Each decays at a different rate, so the proportion of these particles would depend on how long after the big bang we are. The theory fits observed data to within 1% for all the proportions for a universe that is 13ish billion years old. Again this model assumes an expanding universe, so would also predict the size to be about 26bn LY or so, currently.

There's also various other methods, but those are the main ones that I can think of. You can do lots of fancy stuff if you know you are looking at a Quasar, pulsar etc. Incoming cosmic rays also tell a story.

Now, don't take this all /too/ seriously. We know that there must be problems with the standard big bang model, as the universe isn't quite expanding at the rate we'd expect. But nucleosythesis and background radiation are so successful that any modification is going to have to be quite a gentle one.

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away....

[Amphetam1ne]

I can't be the only one that was thinking it after reading the title can I?

Re:A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away....

[Wylfing]

You know, it's funny, yes. But in fact I always imagined this to be part of the mythos of Star Wars. It felt easy to pretend that the reason I was sitting down in a theater in 1977 was that we had intercepted this information from a galaxy far, far away. And of course because of the speed of light it had happened ages ago. It lent a very wonderful quality to the story, I thought.

Re:A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away....

[Rude Turnip]

To add to that, keep in mind that E.T.'s race exists in the Star Wars mythos since Episodes I-III. And, going back to the movie E.T. now, you could construe that perhaps he was using the force to make all those bikes float. I kind of like that little connection, even if unintentional.

Well, if that's the case...

[msauve]

I won't bother calculating how big a birthday cake would be necessary to hold 12.8 billion candles.

Re:Well, if that's the case...

[RFX007]

Assuming each candle takes up one square centimeter, you'll need a cake with a radius of 63,830.765cm. But I didn't double check my math

Re:Well, if that's the case...

[Thanshin]

We assume a spherical frictionless cake...

Re:Well, if that's the case...

[IdleTime]

With my magical brownie, I need only one small brownie to hold them all.

Re:Well, if that's the case...

[bckrispi]

The cake is a lie.
The cake is a lie.
The cake is a lie.

Re:Well, if that's the case...

[Thanshin]

The cake is a spy!

Old and new...

[Mantaar]

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 ;-)

If...

[jd]

...the Webb telescope is launched friday '13th, will it go around killing galaxies instead?

they know how old it CAN be

[Quadraginta]

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.

This kind of thing confuses me

[Synonymous Bosch]

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 :)

Re:This kind of thing confuses me

[EEPROMS]

Astrology is to Astronomy as is a someone with a dowling rod is to a civil engineer.

Re:This kind of thing confuses me

[ChromaticDragon]

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?

We get a picture of a galaxy. We can tell from redshift of the characteristics of the light that we're getting to create that picture how far/old that light is. Since we're using the understanding that the speed of light is and has always been constant, how far away and how old are directly related. What people mean is that we're seeing a picture of a galaxy from a long, long time ago. Assuming it's still there, it'd be at least 12.8 billion years old.

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?

Sure we know where the universe began - in your belly button. Seriously, the question doesn't quite make sense (or the answer doesn't make sense - take your pick). The analogy that might help is to think of the universe like a balloon - but only the rubber sheet. not the entire thing. Light, matter, everything is within and goes round that rubber sheet. The balloon is expanding. That's what's causing the redshift, more or less. If we reverse time and view the balloon as shrinking, everything collapses into the Big Bang. But there is no "place" where the universe started. It started everywhere.

However, I believe there is a theoretical limit beyond which we don't expect to be able to see anything. But it isn't because of the reasons you're positing. It's not because stuff isn't that far away. If I recall correctly, it has more to do with when we believe there was stuff to see.

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?

You would need to BE 12-billion light years in ANY direction from said event (and looking towards the event) AT 12-billion years past the event. Then the light from the event reaches you and you can see what happened 12 billion years ago. Say I fire 20 billion baseballs simultaneously in all directions at 60 miles an hour. Assuming no friction, interference, etc., if you are 60 miles away from where I was when I threw the balls at one hour after I threw them, you're gonna get smacked upside the head with a baseball and you'll get to experience my toss from an hour ago, 60 miles away.

Part of what makes this particular story rather interesting, is that not a lot of light is going to reach us from something that far away. If you think of my 20 billion baseballs, you can understand that at some distance you won't get hit because the balls get spread real thin rather quickly. The light from that galaxy is spread VERY thin. The fact we're seeing it at all is because of some nifty little tricks and a whole lot of luck. Basically we're taking advantage of an ENORMOUS magnifying glass to get a better look.

Re:This kind of thing confuses me

[chrisb33]

A lot of cosmology is non-intuitive, but that's what makes it cool :) I'm not an expert myself, but I can point you in the right direction:

Could you conceivably see the big bang with Hubble if the universe is only 13.5 billion years old? Essentially, yes! You can't see quite back to the big bang itself because at the very beginning the temperatures were too high to allow photons to move freely, but you can get pretty close by observing the Cosmic Microwave Background which was released when the universe became transparent.

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? This is always a sticking point of understanding, but the answer is simple - the universe began right where you are sitting right now! And, of course, every other point in space. Every observer sees the universe as expanding outward from themselves, which is usually explained by imagining pennies glued to an expanding balloon (every penny sees the other pennies moving away) or by this neat demonstration.

To connect these two answers, the CMB is in all directions around us (which is what made it so interesting in the first place - see the wikipedia link) so every direction is looking "back in time".

Re:This kind of thing confuses me

[Scruss]

Essentially you are the center of the universe, your own universe. That for some poeple is hard to get their heads around, once you do it starts to get easier. So next time someone says to you "You think you are just the center of the universe dont you?" You can honestly say, "Yes, yes I do."

Re:This kind of thing confuses me

[PFI_Optix]

I can't imagine how we'd ever see the Big Bang, as the light from it would be on the leading edge of the universe expanding ever outward. If the universe is expanding from a single point in space, we're probably not that far away from being able to determine where that point, within a sizable margin of error.

If we were to look away from the point of origin, we should be able to see the same leading edge, whatever is closest to the Big Bang light that emits its own light so that we can see it. This assumes, of course, that we can see that far.

Re:This kind of thing confuses me

[kalirion]

What if the redshift is caused by a much closer galaxy moving away from us normally (i.e. not through universal expansion). It could be a mere billion light years away, but with enough relative velocity it would "look" more distant. Or am I misunderstanding something?

Re:This kind of thing confuses me

[khallow]

No, you're not misunderstanding. The intervening gravitational lens complicates matters considerably too. But we don't have an idea for what would cause violation of Hubble's Law with velocities being a significant fraction of the speed of light. To give context, we have a pretty good idea what are local galaxies (eg, large size, good detail). And none of them show extremely high velocities.

Re:This kind of thing confuses me

[JohnFluxx]

It means that the galaxy is 12 billion years old. Its current distance would be several times further away - possibly 90 billion light years away or so (just rough estimate, without doing the calculations).

The reason is because while the light has been travelling to us, the spacetime has been expanding, making its distance a lot larger.

In fact, the galaxy is probably moving many times the speed of light away from us currently.

Others have pointed out that the big bang happened 'everywhere'. This is correct, but it's worth mentioning that we are moving relative to it. We are moving at approximately 400km/sec relative to the initial big bang.

Re:This kind of thing confuses me

[JohnFluxx]

The spacetime on which it sits is moving 3 or 4 times the speed of light, relative to us. Even if it was moving really quite fast, it wouldn't affect the redshift by all that much.

Re:This kind of thing confuses me

[kalirion]

The spacetime on which it sits is moving 3 or 4 times the speed of light, relative to us.

Seems a bit circular. "We know galaxy is far away because the redshift is caused by expansion. We know redshift is caused by expansion because galaxy is far away."

And maybe I don't understand relativity, but it seems to me that if our galaxy and that one were moving away from each other (due to expansion) at 3 or 4 times the speed of light at the time that the light was emitted, we'd never see that light. I'm pretty sure I read that somewhere too.

Re:This kind of thing confuses me

[kalirion]

Wouldn't that be like comparing the relative velocity of Alpha Centauri to that of a star on the opposite edge of the Milky Way?

Re:This kind of thing confuses me

[khallow]

Not really. First, the distances you mention are on the order of two magnitudes greater in ratio. In other words, we have a pretty good idea what's going on with half a billion lightyears of us. Second, unlike the galaxy, we observe a well-defined universal expansion with no observable rotation or other large scale movement. It doesn't mean you're wrong, but I'd think we'd see more incompatible observations, if there were huge velocity variations from Hubble's Law.

Re:This kind of thing confuses me

[JohnFluxx]

Yes, you'll never see any light that it emits _now_. But you are seeing the light that it emitted 18 billion years ago, a time when it was moving close, but not faster than, the speed of light, relative to us.

It can seem somewhat circular, but pretty much everything in physics is. E.g.:
    We know gravity exists because when we drop things, they fall. We know something will fall because gravity will pull it down.
and
    The electric field strength is defined as proportional to force that would be exerted on a stationary test particle. The force on a test particle is proportional to the field strength.

For cosmology, the key is that there are lots of measurements, and that they all agree with each other. There are several independent ways to measure the age of the universe, and they pretty much all agree with each other.
Likewise there are quite a few different ways to measure distance, and so far they've all agreed with each other too.

Re:This kind of thing confuses me

[kalirion]

Yes, you'll never see any light that it emits _now_. But you are seeing the light that it emitted 18 billion years ago, a time when it was moving close, but not faster than, the speed of light, relative to us.

I'm guessing you mean 12.8 billion years ago. In any case this makes your comment of "The spacetime on which it sits is moving 3 or 4 times the speed of light, relative to us. Even if it was moving really quite fast, it wouldn't affect the redshift by all that much." invalid because the redshift is based on the time when the galaxy was much closer and the relative speed due to expansion much lower.

Re:This kind of thing confuses me

[JohnFluxx]

Yeah, you'd think so. But almost all of the red shift occurs _as it is moving through space_.

The light has a certain wavelength. But then spacetime expands underneath, as it is moving. So the wavelength increases (red shifts).

By the time it reaches us, it's redshift indicates a speed that is pretty much equal to the current speed of the galaxy.

(And yeah, I meant 12.8 billion years)

boy, it's old, just look at that crusty beard.....

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Atacama Large Millimeter Array

[dwater]

What's a 'large millimeter' when it's at home?

Why not use a small millimeter? Is size really that important?

Re:Atacama Large Millimeter Array

[charlesj68]

Is size really that important? Approximately half the email in my Inbox insists that it is.

You are, however, a bigot.

[Quadraginta]

(subject says it all)

Re:boy, it's old, just look at that crusty beard..

[Skrynkelberg]

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.

Is c still a constant over such a distance?

[severn2j]

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?

Re:Is c still a constant over such a distance?

[Digi-John]

Speed of light in a vacuum is a constant. Bending light around a galaxy cluster will not slow down the light, it'll just send it on a different path.

*sigh* check the stats.

[SilentBob0727]

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?

Re:*sigh* check the stats.

[Grishnakh]

Further, in 2004, 45% of Americans reported accepting some form current evolutionary theory (including "macro" evolution).

That's still pretty bad that 55% of Americans (a majority) believes in Creationism, whereas in more enlightened parts of the world, that number is probably in the single digits.

Rather than lump us all into "brainwashed Christian" territory, why don't you try ignoring the crazies when they come out of the woodwork?

Crazies? As you yourself just pointed out above, a clear majority of Americans believe in Creationism. So why not lump you all into the same category? If you're a Christian and you believe in evolution, then you're the "crazy" in the minority if you live in America.

Your argument would make sense if your survey had shown 95% of Americans accepting evolutionary theory, instead of a meager 45%. Moreover, if you were to find another survey showing what percentage of Americans were Christian vs. non-Christian, you'd probably find that 55-75% of the American population considers itself Christian, which means that a very, very large majority of American Christians reject evolutionary theory.

Re:*sigh* check the stats.

[SilentBob0727]

Crazies? ... you're the "crazy" in the minority if you live in America. I resent being called crazy for simply being an agnostic in America, even though we make up a scant 0.5% of the population.

By "crazies", I refer to those whose mode of debate is intentionally deceptive and misleading. Scientists are misquoted, facts are distorted, bogus statistics are cited, and then when you provide scientific counterarguments, they get emotional and start plugging their ears or damn you to hell rather than listen to you. YMMV but I classify this behavior as crazy.

Of course, this behavior in my own experience comes only from a handful of Creationists. Most others will either live and let live, or at least make an admirable effort to meet you halfway.

55-75% of the American population considers itself Christian 76%, actually.

Which, in light of the evolution/creationism survey, would appear to mean that a healthy minority of American Christians don't buy young earth creationism either.

No, not all U.S. citizens are creationists, and there's enough of us "non-creationists" that to generalize thus is to throw the baby out with the bath water.

Re:*sigh* check the stats.

[Grishnakh]

resent being called crazy for simply being an agnostic in America, even though we make up a scant 0.5% of the population.

Well, you better get over it, because you're crazy. "Crazy" just means your beliefs and behaviors are outside the norm for the general population. So if you're in a group that represents 0.5% of the population, you're definitely crazy in the eyes of the majority. Christians definitely see agnostics as "crazy". FWIW, I'm agnostic too, but I don't mind being considered "weird" or "crazy".

76%, actually.

Which, in light of the evolution/creationism survey, would appear to mean that a healthy minority of American Christians don't buy young earth creationism either.

I guess I'm one of those "glass-is-nine-tenths-empty" people, rather than a "glass-is-one-tenth-full" person like you. If a minority of any size in America doesn't believe in YEC, then America has serious problems. This wouldn't be a big issue if only 2% of the population were YECs, like Europe, but with a majority believing this way, this will cause serious problems for America in the future. After all, what are we doing teaching science in public schools if a majority doesn't believe in it?