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Ultra-Dense Galaxies In the Early Universe
Science Daily is reporting on the characterization of a population of ancient galaxies, formed less than 3 billion years after the Big Bang, that are as massive as some modern galaxies but are only 1/20 the size. Each of the 9 compact galaxies found is less than 5,000 light-years across, and could fit comfortably inside the Milky Way's central hub (if you moved the supermassive black hole out first). The stars in these galaxies were 1/2 to 1 billion years old when observed and at least one generation of massive stars had already exploded as supernovae.
Poul Anderson's Tau Zero makes the suggestion that interstellar contacts between races are more likely in the beginning of the universe than towards the end, simply because all matter will spread so far apart and there won't be enough fuel to move around.
Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun also conjectures a future where galaxies move so far apart that the steersmen of ships cannot locate their destinations by sight and must rely on old charts.
Hemos here. A few years ago, while having dinner in California with our VA Linux corporate overlords, I had to take a piss. As I entered the john, a big beautiful all-American football hero type, about twenty five, came out of one of the booths. I stood at the urinal looking at him out of the corner of my eye as he washed his hands. He didn't once look at me. He was "straight" and married -- and in any case I was sure I wouldn't have a chance with him.
As soon as he left, I darted into the booth he'd vacated, hoping there might be a lingering smell of shit and even a seat still warm from his sturdy young ass. I found not only the smell but the shit itself. He'd forgotten to flush. And what a treasure he had left behind. Three or four beautiful specimens floated in the bowl. It apparently had been a fairly dry, constipated shit, for all were fat, stiff, and ruggedly textured. The real prize was a great feast of turd -- a nine inch gastrointestinal triumph as thick as a man's wrist. I knelt before the bowl, inhaling the rich brown fragrance and wondered if I should obey the impulse building up inside me. I'd always been a heavy rimmer and had lapped up more than one little clump of shit, but that had been just an inevitable part of eating ass and not an end in itself.
Of course I'd had jerkoff fantasies of devouring great loads of it (what rimmer hasn't?), but I had never done it. Now, here I was, confronted with the most beautiful five-pound turd I'd ever feasted my eyes on, a sausage fit to star in any fantasy and one I knew to have been hatched from the asshole of the world's handsomest young stud.
Why not? I plucked it from the bowl, holding it with both hands to keep it from breaking.
I lifted it to my nose. It smelled like rich, ripe limburger (horrid, but thrilling), yet had the consistency of cheddar. What is cheese anyway but milk turning to shit without the benefit of a digestive tract? I gave it a lick and found that it tasted better then it smelled. I've found since then that shit nearly almost does. I hesitated no longer. I shoved the fucking thing as far into my mouth as I could get it and sucked on it like a big brown cock, beating my meat like a madman. I wanted to completely engulf it and bit off a large chunk, flooding my mouth with the intense, bittersweet flavor. To my delight I found that while the water in the bowl had chilled the outside of the turd, it was still warm inside. As I chewed I discovered that it was filled with hard little bits of something I soon identified as peanuts. He hadn't chewed them carefully and they'd passed through his body virtually unchanged. I ate it greedily, sending lump after peanutty lump sliding scratchily down my throat. My only regret was the donor of this feast wasn't there to wash it down with his piss. I soon reached a terrific climax. I caught my cum in the cupped palm of my hand and drank it down. Believe me, there is no more delightful combination of flavors than the hot sweetness of cum with the rich bitterness of shit.
Afterwards I was sorry that I hadn't made it last longer. But, as fate would have it, Larry Augustin invited me back to his condo after dinner for some desert. But that's another story.
'course, all those galaxies would still fit if you DIDN'T move the supermassive black hole first. You'd just have to remove "comfortably" from the statement.
If they're over thirteen million light-years distant, they might represent a tantalizing glimpse into the physics of galaxy formation shortly after the Big Bang - the presence of heavier-than-helium elements indicates that at least one round of (superheavy) star formation/destruction has taken place, but they could still be relatively good examples of galactic physics in the (then neonatal) Universe.
Oops - off by an order of magnitude. Mea culpa.
Yeah, first thing I'll do in the morning. Promise, dear.
...when the whole Universe was much denser at that stage. It's still good science, and another piece of information the human race possesses (especially in the detail) but I'm unsurprised.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
The thing is, the rate of new star formation is decreasing over time.
;)
While technically there still is plenty of hydrogen left, the quantity of _free_ hydrogen (available for a new star) is becoming gradually more rare. More and more is locked inside old dead stars. Even a supernova doesn't eject all the matter in the star. A red giant only sheds the outer layer, or to put it other wise, does about as much to recycle the star as shedding does to recycle your dog
So basically if we're talking 100 billion years in the future -- which was the last number I heard for a universe where nothing is visible outside the galaxy -- there may be a rather extreme shortage of stars like the sun, and of civilizations trying to make contact with each other.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Science Daily isn't announcing anything, they just regurgitate press releases.
A team of astrophysicists at Yale have published a paper in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. They're the ones announcing it.
Am I the only one annoyed by such an imprecise expression as "1/20th the size". One doesn't know from reading it if this is 1/20th the linear dimensions, or 1/20th the volume. (Turns out its the former, which makes it 1/8000th the volume, which is far more interesting.)