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Record-Breaking Galaxy Cluster Found

Posted by Soulskill on from the deeper-field dept.

The Bad Astronomer writes "Astronomers are reporting that they have detected the most distant cluster of galaxies ever seen: a mind-smashing 9.6 billion light years away, 400 million light years more distant than the previous record holder. The cluster, handily named SXDF-XCLJ0218-0510, was seen in infrared images by the giant Subaru telescope, and confirmed with spectroscopy and the X-ray detection of million-degree gas (a smoking gun of clusters). Every time astronomers push back the record for clusters, they learn more about the early conditions of the universe, so this cluster will provide insight into how the universe itself changed over the first few billion years after the Big Bang."

13 of 246 comments (clear)

  1. Fascinating! by spartacus_prime · · Score: 4, Funny

    Is this the new "Beowulf cluster?"

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    1. Re:Fascinating! by DevConcepts · · Score: 4, Funny

      Nope! Ping time to long @ 9.6 Billion light years.

    2. Re:Fascinating! by Amouth · · Score: 2, Funny

      The Universe itself is only 13.7 billion years old

      and yet we still are looking for the expiration date..

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      '...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
  2. Ob by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    How many parsecs is that? Er, wait ... [head asplode]

  3. it IS mind-smashing by circletimessquare · · Score: 5, Funny

    i tried to consider what 9.6 billion light years was like in terms of distance. i mean, really, really tried to get a mental grasp on that scale of size

    and i couldn't do it, and now there's a trickle of blood leading out of my nose

    thanks a lot, slashdot

    i'll just go back to the simply mind-bending effort of trying to imagine the amount of indexed pages in google in terms of library of congress units

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  4. Re:Which begs the question: by tom17 · · Score: 5, Funny

    I raise to differ!

  5. Clusters? by Locke2005 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Do these clusters sometimes merge together to give birth to entirely new galaxies, and if so, what would that merging process be called?

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    1. Re:Clusters? by oodaloop · · Score: 4, Funny

      In a bizarre and ironic twist, they are called weekly meetings.

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      Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
  6. That's a coincidence... by orkysoft · · Score: 2, Funny

    The aliens that inhabit SXDF-XCLJ0218-0510 recently discovered the Milky Way, and decided to call it SXDF-XCLJ0218-0510. This is going to get confusing.

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    I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
    1. Re:That's a coincidence... by Skarecrow77 · · Score: 3, Funny

      luckily they called it SXDF-XCLJ0218-0510 in their own, alien, langugage, which means that when we first encounter them, we'll just pick something that sounds vaguely, but not really all that close, to what they're saying.

      Like, say, Peking.

  7. My mind was smashed as soon as I read by oodaloop · · Score: 2, Funny

    the first sentence. Felt like a slice of lemon wrapped around a large gold brick.

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    Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
  8. The whole thing is a lie from the Devil anyway. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    The universe is only 10,000 years old.

  9. Re:Putting it in Star Trek terms... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    If I did my maths right (and that's always doubtful), it's 3.14(+/-) million years away at warp 9.9.

    You might want to pack some extra snacks for that trip.

    If it's 3.1415 million year away, would that make it a round trip?