Record-Breaking Galaxy Found In Deep Hubble Image

The Bad Astronomer writes "Astronomers using Hubble Space Telescope have found a galaxy at the very edge of the Universe: the light from this far-flung object has been traveling a whopping 13.1 billion years to get here! The galaxy appears as a non-descript dot in the infrared Hubble Ultra Deep Field taken using the Wide Field Camera 3, but a spectrum taken using a ground-based telescope confirms that we're seeing this object as it was a mere 600 million years after the Big Bang itself."

Comments

Does it still exist?

[Dyinobal]

So does it still exist? Considering how far the light is traveling to get here, is there any way to determine if the galaxy is even still there? Then again I don't imagine they just disappear but I dunno it could be suffering heat death and all the stars burning out.

Re:Does it still exist?

[Brad1138]

No, there is no way to know for sure if it still exists, but I think most don't "live" that long and it has probably faded out or "evolved" into something different.

Re:Does it still exist?

[Lanteran]

I think there's a maximum length after which a galaxy cannot exist; diminishing element returns from supernovae. Unfortunately I'm not sure how long it is, but it's much longer than 13 billion years; individual red dwarves can last for hundreds of billions of years. As for merger with other galaxies or destruction by a supermassive black hole though, its anyone's guess.

Re:Does it still exist?

[tpstigers]

It's still there, or at least it was when I was there last month. The pizza's not nearly as good as it used to be, though.

Re:Does it still exist?

[modmans2ndcoming]

according to relativity, if we see it it exists.

Re:Does it still exist?

[telomerewhythere]

Since every direction we look we see the same type of cosmology at the edge of visible space, 1)we are no closer than 13~bly from the edge of the universe, and 2)What is seen here has already followed the same pattern of galaxy life cycle that can be observed from looking from farthest away to closest in.

So, It still exists as a distinct galaxy or it has merged with another galaxy.

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

PS NO, it's not still in the location we observe it today, it has moved quite a bit since it emitted that 13.1billion year old light.

Re:Does it still exist?

[BizzyM]

Sub-question: is it better to burn out or fade away?

Re:Does it still exist?

[atfrase]

I think there's a maximum length after which a galaxy cannot exist; diminishing element returns from supernovae. Unfortunately I'm not sure how long it is, but it's much longer than 13 billion years; individual red dwarves can last for hundreds of billions of years. As for merger with other galaxies or destruction by a supermassive black hole though, its anyone's guess.

If the universe is under 15 billions years old, how do we know red dwarves can last 100 billion years?

Re:Does it still exist?

[theantipop]

Mathematics.

Re:Does it still exist?

[Anonymous Coward]

Science!

Re:Does it still exist?

[c0lo]

Mathematics.

The discipline that applies into everything, but in itself is about nothing (real).

Re:Does it still exist?

[hcs_$reboot]

Yes it does. Someone should really go up there and clean that piece of dust sticked to the mirror.

Re:Does it still exist?

[yariv]

This question is not well phrased. There is no universal "now" in relativity. You probably mean something like "in our reference frame does this galaxy exist somewhere now", and then the answer is that we can't tell. If you'll choose some other reference frame, you'll get different points to correspond to our "now". So abandon the notion of "still exist", it exists "now" in the most meaningful way, the point we see when we look there...

Re:Does it still exist?

[Lanteran]

http://xkcd.com/54/

Re:Does it still exist?

[sortius_nod]

Considering the article estimates the bing bang to have happend around 13.7 billion years ago, I don't see how red dwarves can exist for over 100 billion years.

Re:Does it still exist?

[ArwynH]

There can be only one!

Re:Does it still exist?

[Lanteran]

also, a bit off topic, but based on current math, a red dwarf with a tenth of a solar mass can last 10 trillion years.

Re:Does it still exist?

[sirrunsalot]

Why not? The water bottle I'm holding was created only weeks ago, but I see no reason to doubt that it could take a thousand years to biodegrade.

Re:Does it still exist?

[PinkyGigglebrain]

Here is an interesting twist for you.

What if that blob of a gallaxy is is really the Milkyway when it was very young and the light we are seeing has in fact traveled around the curve of the Universe so we can see it now the way it was then.

We only have to wait 13.1 billion years to see if it evolves into what we see locally now.

Re:Does it still exist?

[Airborne-ng]

Insert obligatory Highlander intro theme ...for those that need their fix.

Re:Does it still exist?

[PinkyGigglebrain]

Probably got eaten by another galaxy, there was a lot of cannibalism back then.

Re:Does it still exist?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm no. Relativity postulates that the speed of light is constant, not infinite.

Re:Does it still exist?

[Kilrah_il]

I guess you were eating at "The Restaurant at the Start of the Universe". I like their band.

Re:Does it still exist?

[nacturation]

Considering the article estimates the bing bang to have happend around 13.7 billion years ago, I don't see how red dwarves can exist for over 100 billion years.

Observe a red dwarf over a period of years and estimate its current mass as well as its rate of mass depletion. Then do the math and calculate the amount of time it will take until its mass is such that it is no longer a red dwarf. Obviously someone has done this and come up with an estimated longevity of more than 100 billion years.

Re:Does it still exist?

[Anonymous Coward]

we are no closer than 13~bly from the edge of the universe

If there is in fact an "edge" to speak of. The structure of the Universe could very well be such that if you keep going forward, you'll eventually end up back were you started.

Of course, if you are talking about the "visible, known" Universe, then you are technically correct.

Re:Does it still exist?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not even certain that this question makes sense. Not trolling; but if we can only know what's happening in that galaxy "600 million years ago," isn't that precisely what's happening now? The future timeline of that galaxy is not something we can know unless we have somebody go there, come back, and oh, wait: That person's info will STILL be at least 14.4 billion years behind. Or at least that's my interpretation of relativity: that what's happening somewhere else at the same time, especially on galactic scales, is not a question that makes sense.

Re:Does it still exist?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the grandparent's point is that for all intents and purposes, we only experience something else as existing by signals exchanged at the speed of light (the basic point of special relativity). Whether or not an object exists "right now" is sorta a meaningless question to ask in the first place.

Re:Does it still exist?

[symbolset]

The Universe is really good about recycling stuff. From what we know of the preservation of mass/energy and the evolution of galaxies and stars, the stuff that galaxy was made of was is still there mostly - except for tiny fraction of mass that's been converted to energy - a small fraction of which is the light that we see. The stars have gone Nova or Supernova, faded to red giants, or collided with other stars to be reignited and reborn as a new class of star while throwing off much mass that cools to become dust or wayward planets. The Galaxy core has swallowed much, as have the thousands of black holes that live within that galaxy, and those black holes have evaporated much back out, most of the mass would still be free from any black hole and would exist as stellar systems composed of stars orbited by planets, comets, asteroids and dust. Between the stars will be bits of dust and gas as usual, but mostly vast cold empty space. Given the standard distribution it's likely that galaxy has had several collisions with neighboring galaxies, with considerable mixing, and flung some of its stuff into the cold dark abyss but gained much more in the merger. It may have settled into a standard galactic form, or be involved with a messy galactic collision as our galaxy is. Still it's likely that there are stars there, as much as here and in as good variety, with worlds and comets circling the stars, and moons about the worlds. Life is no more likely to arise here than there. There are doubtless many millions of stars in that galaxy that humans would find habitable yet. Without data we have no reason to believe or disbelieve that in that mass of stars there is not now life looking back at the mass of stars our predecessor galaxy was those billions of years ago, wondering if there is intelligent life here or if there might be someday.

"There" is somewhat of a tricky term since it's a good bit further away now than it was when the light that we see left there. Across such distances "now" has a rather fluid meaning as well - what time it is there depends somewhat on the path you take to get there and even at the speed of light the straightest path isn't necessarily the shortest. Also, "is" is a bit of a struggle. The universe has expanded so much in that time that the light that leaves here now cannot fall upon the stuff those stars were made of, ever. And if that stuff has escaped our light cone, can it be said to still "be"?

And yet if we look in the opposite direction we can see galaxies nearly as far away as this - and someday we may beat this range in that direction. We can be sure these galaxies on the distant edge of vision from here and diametrically opposed have never seen each other and never will: there was no time for that light to get from the one to the other before the expansion of the Universe flung them so far apart that they have always existed in separate light cones. In the imaginary experiment where in a static reference frame we could transport instantaneously to the stuff these distant galaxies have become there is no reason to believe that the view from there is any different than from here: stars and galaxies, as far as our current telescopes can see both back toward us, and the other way also. For certain if we could jump that distance twice and looked back, we would see the other side of this same galaxy, as each sun shed its light in all directions.

If we could repeat that jump over and over some think we might end up where we started, as the curvature of space itself bends back in some way until if you go far enough, you come home. Among these some think that in this distant galaxy the Universe is so tightly curved that we're already looking at our galaxy from the other side, somewhere out there in the sky. Others that more leaps are required.

Some thinkers take the divergent view that that the Universe is flat - or curves the other way, and eventually instead we would come to the End, whereafter is nothing but light flung into the dark neve

Re:Does it still exist?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's known that it's better to burn out than it is to rust.

Re:Does it still exist?

[Literaryhero]

So we should name it Schrodinger's Galaxy?

Re:Does it still exist?

[Anonymous Coward]

If we somehow knew something about its fate, then that would mean that we got that knowledge through information transfer at a speed faster than light... The most current information we have about this object is its appearance as it was 13.1 billion years ago. Anything other than that is pure speculation based on our understanding of stellar and galaxy evolution.

Re:Does it still exist?

[sconeu]

But rust never sleeps

Re:Does it still exist?

[symbolset]

Unless it hit something. 10 trillion years is a long time to avoid a collision, even if you're a good driver.

Re:Does it still exist?

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps whatever has evolved there is just now seeing what we evolved from.

Or something like that. Whoa... dude....

Re:Does it still exist?

[symbolset]

Sorry, but it took a really long time to compose my response to the parent. Please refer below.

Also: if the curvature of space is recursive and uniform in all directions, and we can see ourselves from here, then the microwave background pattern of the Universe is not an echo from the Big Bang. That signal must then be ourselves at whatever distance the curvature loops back, and the pattern is doppled by the masses along the loop which gives us a way to map all that is.

Re:Does it still exist?

[Anonymous Coward]

Which means that nothing is real?

Re:Does it still exist?

[UCSCTek]

You might be tickled to learn that there are some (wild-ish) theories that posit "every mathematical abstraction exists", as in, for every concept you can derive from mathematics, it actually exists "somewhere". Look at "mathematical multiverse" here http://space.mit.edu/home/tegmark/crazy.html And Tegmark is not actually a crackpot, just fanciful. :)

Re:Does it still exist?

[fractoid]

The discipline that applies into everything, but in itself is about nothing (real).

It's kind of like C++ in that regard. It can do anything, but without the appropriate libraries (application knowledge) it can do nothing.

Re:Does it still exist?

[fractoid]

That's the Big Bang Burger Bar to you.

Re:Does it still exist?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not meaningless, just hidden from us. When a Mars probe is supposed to land at 1:23 UT, at that time the Mars probe either landed or crashed, and 30 minutes later at 1:53 UT when its signal is supposed to reach us we know whether the probe landed or crashed at 1:23 UT. If you then travel there with a clock and can somehow measure the age of the crater, you'll see that it occurred at 1:23 UT. Stuff is happening outside of your light cone, you know.

Re:Does it still exist?

[PinkyGigglebrain]

That occurred to me as well after I hit submit.

The three degree background might be the energy emitted by all the stars, etc., and attenuated (inverse square) by the distance and overlaped with itself each time it travels back to its origin. That would explain the uniformity of it.

Of course this would mean we live in a bounded Universe that was only(!)13.1 billion light years wide.

Just as interesting is to consider that from the view point of that galaxy now a sentient would see the Milkyway looking the same as their galaxy does now to us. And if they looked in the opposite direction they would see another early galaxy 13.1 billion years from them. A sentient in THAT galaxy now would not be able to see our galaxy since we would be beyond their current light horizon. So it will be another 13.1 billion years before light from our galaxy reaches them and they even know the Milkyway exists.

I really love thinking about this kind of stuff, keeps me from dwelling too much on the little things.

Re:Does it still exist?

[c0lo]

Which means that nothing is real?

I hereby solemnly declare that nothing is, indeed, real.
Also real are, for the matter of generalization by induction, nobody and noone (which aren't just anybody or, respectively, anyone; paradoxically, the aren't somebody/someone either).

My friend, it is only the complex numbers that have an imaginary part.

Re:Does it still exist?

[symbolset]

If the universe is so curved and the curvature is universally similar, then the cosmic background microwave radiation would the mass of our predecessor galaxy in the long view. The frequency would tell us the angle of curvature, and the rate of expansion. The differences in background frequency would tell us both the size of the universe and our location within it. The doppling of the background from that understanding would then be a map to all the mass that is. It would answer a lot of questions. Unfortunately no current analysis of the available data gives these answers. The analysis has been attempted since the '70s, and no reasonable explanation for varying curvatures of space have been found that bring the picture into resolution. I'm not saying that you're wrong - only that that solution has been thoroughly picked over and the proof isn't found yet.

It may be possible with modern computational techniques that use a sliding curvature to find optimal focus using known masses that this will yield a map of the Universe that's static and well understood, thereby defining the curvature constant. That outcome seems unlikely, but I have to give you that it's possible.

Re:Does it still exist?

[CrashandDie]

The discipline that applies into everything, but in itself is about nothing (real).

I think you'll find that math is in fact a lot about reals.

Re:Does it still exist?

[symbolset]

When I was a kid, oh, those many decades ago, there was a radio observatory just outside of town where they discovered this "microwave background pattern of the universe" thing. It was, roughly, here. They called it "Project Orion" back then - though I understand the name has been appropriated since. The site itself was called "Big Ears on the Desert." I have no idea if it's still there. The last time I was there was over 20 years ago, and I wandered about an empty campus for a couple hours and went home. (It was a holiday weekend. The computers were still humming, the dishes were still tracking. I overcame my innate urge to geek on the console.)

The guys from there did come into town now and then. They were a talkative bunch. Full of ideas and theories, and "but don't tell." They had great computers, and I hoped to work with them, but it was not to be. They had visitors from all the tech world - I met a guy on the design team for the Straw Man implementation of ADA there. IIRC I stole his girlfriend. Fun times.

If you get out that way, let us know how it went. If anybody knows the answer to this question, they do.

Re:Does it still exist?

[LynnwoodRooster]

Give me 13 billion years, I'll let you know...

Re:Does it still exist?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not "wild-ish", its simply a different ontology from what you seem to be using. (Its true by definition under idealism.)

Philosophy of science is a funny (but interesting) thing.

Re:Does it still exist?

[dintech]

What if that blob of a gallaxy is is really the Milkyway when it was very young and the light we are seeing has in fact traveled around the curve of the Universe so we can see it now the way it was then.

Whoa. As Keanu Reaves would say.

Re:Does it still exist?

[dargaud]

And they even write novels where it's a central point to the plot...

Re:Does it still exist?

[TapeCutter]

"but I dunno it could be suffering heat death and all the stars burning out."

Unlikely, the oldest known star in the milky way is a 13.2 billion year old red giant called HE 1523-0901.

Re:Does it still exist?

[Khyber]

Except BizzyM is quoting Def Leppard's 'Rock of Ages' from their Pyromania album.

Re:Does it still exist?

[Sweetshark]

Which in turn is only quoting "Hey Hey, My My" by Neil Young (as did Kurt Cobain's suicide note)... Kids these days ...

Re:Does it still exist?

[imakemusic]

To you it may be but to me, a listener of the original radio series and reader of the (the correct, unbastardised) UK versions of the book it is known as the Big Bang Burger Chef.

Re:Does it still exist?

[Anonymous Coward]

You probably are right. But not in that spooky way you are trying to present. At the beginning of Universe when the first stars were born and galaxies were formed, there were far more galaxies than now, and they interacted often and more than they do now, they were closer together. So your theory about our galaxy being a part of that galaxy maybe true. Knowing that our galaxy is on collision course with Andromeda galaxy who knows whit what that galaxy collided with and what did it for.
      Who knows who is watching us evolving. The Universe is old and big and yet so young.

Re:Does it still exist?

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering the article estimates the bing bang to have happend around 13.7 billion years ago, I don't see how red dwarves can exist for over 100 billion years.

Jeez. Does Microsoft have to put their logo on everything these days?

Re:Does it still exist?

[fractoid]

We should come to some arrangement whereby I tell him to keep off my lawn while you tell me to keep off your lawn.

Re:Does it still exist?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's like saying "you were born 30 years ago so I don't see how you can exist for 80+ years".

Re:Does it still exist?

[McGiraf]

And Rock 'n Roll will never die.

Re:Does it still exist?

[sysrammer]

Great little monograph.

thx, sr

Re:Does it still exist?

[McGiraf]

except that the libraries are written in C++ too...

Re:Does it still exist?

[Combatso]

What if that blob of a gallaxy is is really the Milkyway

Like the chocolate bar? That'd be awesome

Re:Does it still exist?

[BotnetZombie]

That applies to all programming languages, except perhaps assembly when talking directly to a machine's internals. Unless you think that e.g. Java's SDK or Python's included goodies don't count as libraries.

Re:Does it still exist?

[stealth_finger]

So does it still exist? Considering how far the light is traveling to get here, is there any way to determine if the galaxy is even still there? Then again I don't imagine they just disappear but I dunno it could be suffering heat death and all the stars burning out.

Wait for the light out to go out? Then we know it went out 13.1billion years ago.

Re:Does it still exist?

[tom17]

Actually, it should be OK.
It's what it's made of. Back in the 22nd Century aerospace engineers discovered that after a plane crash, the only thing that always survives intact is a cute little doll, so they made Red Dwarf* out of the same stuff.

*OK OK. I searched the quote and realised it was Starbug, not Red Dwarf, I forgot about that. Still, I wanted the quote anyway. Sue me.

Re:Does it still exist?

[Combatso]

if this is the case, then Heritage England owns the rights to the images taken. Since, at some point, stonehenge will be built there (here)

Re:Does it still exist?

[SQLGuru]

Except in older video games. If it wasn't rendered on the screen, it wasn't active and moving. You could leave the room, wander the dungeon, and come back, and that monster would be in exactly the same place when you can back with the mega-gun.

Re:Does it still exist?

[BizzyM]

I was trying to quote Jack Black in High Fidelity. "Rob, top five musical crimes perpetuated by Stevie Wonder in the '80s and '90s. Go. Sub-question: is it in fact unfair to criticize a formerly great artist for his latter day sins, is it better to burn out or fade away?"

Re:Does it still exist?

[Quirkz]

It's as real as anything.

Re:Does it still exist?

[BlackSnake112]

http://xkcd.com/435/

Re:Does it still exist?

[BlackSnake112]

Yes. Did you miss the memo?

Re:Does it still exist?

[norpan]

Actually, the way we see it is the way it is "now", from our point of view. Remember that time is relative.

What this means is that there is no concept of "now" at the location of that galaxy that corresponds to our "now", apart from the point we are actually seeing.

There is no objective observer that can observe both points "at the same time", and in fact no such correspondance exists.

To answer your question: yes it does still exist, at least from our point of view of time.

Re:Does it still exist?

[symbolset]

There is no point. That's the joke. But it sure is fun.

Re:Does it still exist?

[Anonymous Coward]

You probably mean something like "in our reference frame does this galaxy exist somewhere now"

Of course he means that. That's the default meaning of "now" unless specified otherwise. Are you this jerk who answers "in which reference frame?" when a coworker asks you if the meeting is starting now?

Re:Does it still exist?

[mcgrew]

You know what Hawking says about Schrödinger.

Re:Does it still exist?

[tehcyder]

Observe a red dwarf over a period of years and estimate its current mass as well as its rate of mass depletion. Then do the math and calculate the amount of time it will take until its mass is such that it is no longer a red dwarf. Obviously someone has done this and come up with an estimated longevity of more than 100 billion years.

You can't argue with logic like that.

Re:Does it still exist?

[tehcyder]

I don't know what it is, but there's something slightly fishy about your post.

Re:Does it still exist?

[tomkinsightful]

then the microwave background pattern of the Universe is not an echo from the Big Bang

I dont follow your logic. If light goes around in circles, it still takes time to travel and still carries the signal from the event of its original emission. Even if we see ourselves as a hydrogen condensation, which is what we were 13 billion years ago.

Re:Does it still exist?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but unfortunately we see ourselves in every direction. Everywhere we look, we see us. The Universe in this scheme becomes a hall of mirrors. We cannot see the End because we are in the way, and we can't move out of the way.

Re:Does it still exist?

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember back in the days when a billion anything was a large number..

Re:Does it still exist?

[Anonymous Coward]

Also definitively, the speed of light, C, as a constant is assumptive and should still be theoretical for the rest of the unknown universe. Are we absolutely positive we can assume to know all forms of matter of light that exists and then to know definitively the speed at which it travels, or does it actually travel at all or is it purely our observation of it traveling to it?

Re:Does it still exist?

[Jesse_vd]

Now, now. I've got one of the higher UID's in this thread and that's the first thing i thought of!

Re:Does it still exist?

[marcosdumay]

Only if you declare it in Pascal. When using C it should be double.

Re:Does it still exist?

[CMYKjunkie]

"Evolved" into something else?? Preposterous!! Everyone knows that this galaxy was **designed** by an intelligence around 6,000 ago.

Re:Does it still exist?

[JimFive]

Of course this would mean we live in a bounded Universe that was only(!)13.1 billion light years wide.

I'm pretty sure this is wrong, the Universe would be (13.1 billion ly) + (However far we've moved in the last 13.1 billion years)

On a less pedantic note, do cosmologists have an estimate for the age of the galaxy?
--
JimFive

Re:Does it still exist?

[SleazyRidr]

I didn't before, but thanks to your sig I do now!

I still don't know what he meant though... :(

Re:Does it still exist?

[modmans2ndcoming]

except we are not talking about the uncertainty of an event being communicated to us, we are talking about the existence of something that we can see. The galaxy is shining in the sky, there for it exists according to Relativity.

"Now" has meaning for us in the context of earth and relative to earth, that Galaxy exists. Relenting to the planet nubrabu which is 8 billion light years closer to the location in the universe that the galaxy exists, perhaps it has flitted out of existence.

Re:Does it still exist?

[PinkyGigglebrain]

Of course its wrong, more probable than not anyway, but its still fun to think about things like this, keeps your brain from becoming too dogmatic. How do you think Einstein started on relativity?

My personal view is the Universe is a bounded but infinite bubble that exists in something akin to a De Siter Space filled with other bubbles and quantum membranes.

The article doesn't mention an actual age for the galaxy, only that the first stars where forming about the same time. So it might be that the really big, higher density, clouds of H and He that would eventually become the first galaxies had already formed and the the first stars were not "free" but already part of larger structures.

_

Re:Does it still exist?

[Anonymous Coward]

The discipline that applies into everything, but in itself is about nothing (real).

I think you'll find that math is in fact a lot about reals.

But infinitely more about imaginary

Re:Does it still exist?

[VShael]

How will you let us know? I'll be dead after 12 billion years.

Re:Does it still exist?

[Kilrah_il]

I have no lawn, you insensitive clod!

Re:Does it still exist?

[mcgrew]

If you mean what Hawking meant, it's that he does indeed know whether or not the cat's dead, because he's going to shoot it.

It's dead, Jim.

Re:Does it still exist?

[Trogre]

If that were true then we're not really looking back in time at all when we observe far away phenomena.

Which is bollocks. Of course there's a delay - it takes light real time to get from there to here. Imagine, if you will, a wormhole between here and that galaxy, making the total transit distance negligible (say a few light days to keep a safe distance from us). If you were able to travel (or even just peer) through that hole at will, what would you see?

That is the "now" that people refer to when asking about somethings current status.

Just because we currently have no way of observing what is happening there now (and there really is a "now", even taking into account relativity) doesn't mean the construct doesn't exist.

Re:Does it still exist?

[LynnwoodRooster]

Quitter.

Re:Does it still exist?

[RespekMyAthorati]

Exactly.

All we know is that at the time of measurement (which we call "now"), the photons emitted by the galaxy long ago still exist.

We know nothing about the galaxy other than that.

Re:Does it still exist?

[VeNoM0619]

Poetic and awe-inspiring...

The closer we get to it, the quicker it dies.

Correct me if I'm wrong..

[Lanteran]

but isn't there a practical light/distance limit after which we can only see the glow of the big bang? I'm thinking 13B light years, exciting that we're approaching it

Re:Correct me if I'm wrong..

[Dexter Herbivore]

Considering that they state that this galaxy is 13.1 billion light years away, and 600 million years after the Big Bang... I would say that from a rough calculation that the limit you're referring to is about 13.7 billion light years.

Re:Correct me if I'm wrong..

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, there's a limit. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Big_Bang#Recombination:_ca_377.2C000_years

When the universe was still too hot for atoms to form, photons couldn't get too far before hitting a free electron. Then the universe cooled enough for recombination of hydrogen ions and electrons, making the universe 'clear'.

So we can only see back to 377000 years after the big bang, then it's lost in the background microwave radiation.

Re:Correct me if I'm wrong..

[rubycodez]

the universe was opaque to radiation until 400,000 years after the Big Bang, that's the very last time most of the CMB photons interacted with matter.

Re:Correct me if I'm wrong..

[Fluffeh]

Actually, I believe that after the Big Bang but before the first galaxies, there was a rather long period which were know as the dark ages".

You can see radiation from the big bang, but you can't see the light. Ever. The big bang itself didn't make any light. Photons simply couldn't exist in those conditions.

Re:Correct me if I'm wrong..

[telomerewhythere]

We see cosmic microwave background radiation from ~400,000 years after the Big Bang, according to Wiki.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_background_radiation
So we can theoretically see out to BB+~400k years

Re:Correct me if I'm wrong..

[Wolfbone]

The first ~380,000 years are all glow, yes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recombination_(cosmology) and galaxies take some time to form after that too. Note also that if the light from an object we are seeing now has taken ~13 Gyr to get here, that object is actually considerably further away than ~13 Gly because of the expansion of the cosmos.

Re:Correct me if I'm wrong..

[pinkushun]

The big bang itself didn't make any light. Photons simply couldn't exist in those conditions.

I have not considered that before! Great insight.

Re:Correct me if I'm wrong..

[VShael]

You're wrong.

Since the Big Bang happened at all points in space simultaneously (because they were all the same point, back then) there will never be a time when we can't see the glow because we've moved too far (in terms of distance).

Whatever point in space you pick, that point contains the glow of the big bang. And it always will.

Re:Correct me if I'm wrong..

[VShael]

True, but i think the original poster uses the "glow of the big bang" to mean the CMB, which is, as you say, the radiation from after the photon decoupling.

Record breaking

[DavMz]

I am not sure it is a record-breaking galaxy, but Hubble is definitely a record-breaking telescope!

Re:Record breaking

[Lanteran]

it's amazing to think it was launched almost 20 years ago.

Re:Record breaking

[hcs_$reboot]

Record of flaws injected in such a space device, or record of servicing and reparations?

Re:Record breaking

[east coast]

Just a FYI: It has been over 20 years.

Re:Record breaking

[SleazyRidr]

Oh, you're not the only one...

Re:Record breaking

[SleazyRidr]

Yeah, which record does this galaxy break? Is it the oldest one we've ever seen? I thought we'd seen some that are only 400 million years after the Big Bang, or am I getting confused with something else?

Re:Record breaking

[Lanteran]

by five months.

Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. That was so cool of God to put something like that so far away just for us to discover.

Re:Wow

[sirrunsalot]

Don't forget that all we're talking about here is photons created in mid-transit so that it would look like there's a galaxy there. Personally, I still think dinosaurs take the cake in the category of artifacts created 6000 years ago solely for our bemusement.

Re:Wow

[danlip]

Well, creating a 6000 light-year radius field of photons is certainly easier than creating a whole universe, especially if you've only got 7 days to do it in. And since the world will clearly end any day now, the field needn't be any bigger. You don't even both creating actual matter outside the solar system.

(actually it seems even easier to create a photon generating sphere around the solar system, or just the earth, and simulate everything - those pesky probes humans send out could be destroyed when they reach the boundary and incorporated into the simulation - the Pioneer anomaly is just a bug - who says God writes perfect code?)

Re:Wow

[XDirtypunkX]

So you're saying God hacked up a sky-box?

Only is Hubble's Law is valid

[anarkhos]

Only if you buy into Hubble's Law, which various anomalies (most involving quasars) should give one pause.

Re:Only is Hubble's Law is valid

[Anonymous Coward]

Only if you buy into Hubble's Law, which various anomalies (most involving quasars) should give one pause.

Uh... Hubble's Law which various anomalies should give one pause? Parsing error.

Whoa!

[PinkyGigglebrain]

13.1 billion light years? That is like, totally far out, Dude.

red shift

[Anonymous Coward]

anybody in the know want to translate z=8.6 as a fraction of c? (too lazy to look it up)

Re:red shift

[Wolfbone]

>1 of course but I think there's a working calculator here: http://www.uni.edu/morgans/ajjar/Cosmology/cosmos2.html which should give you the current best estimate if you have Java (I don't, atm).

Re:red shift

[Anonymous Coward]

anybody in the know want to translate z=8.6 as a fraction of c?

Well, since z is a distance (scale factor) and c is a velocity, the obvious answer would be "you don't".

If your ship is so fast, how many parsecs did it take you to make the Kessel run?

Re:red shift

[Wolfbone]

Well, since z is a distance (scale factor) and c is a velocity,

It isn't a distance or a scale factor: z is a pure number ratio of frequencies or wavelengths http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redshift

Re:red shift

[Bootsy Collins]

z=8.6 corresponds to an apparently recession velocity of 0.9785c.

The formula of interest is (1+z) = wavelength_obs / wavelength_emitted = [ (1+\beta) / (1-\beta) ]^0.5, where \beta = v/c, and v = apparent line of sight velocity. Invert that equation for beta and you get \beta = [ (1+z)^2 - 1 ] / [ (1+z)^2 + 1 ]. Plug in z=8.6 and there's your answer.

Will the James Webb??

[zerospeaks]

Will the James webb telescope see farther? If it can see further than 14 billion years then it can see the big bang.... wait what?

Re:Will the James Webb??

[yariv]

seeing the big bang is easy, it's called cosmic radiation.

Re:Will the James Webb??

[TapeCutter]

The BB is still occuring, we are part of it.

How does this work?

[Praseodymn]

A question that I've always had about this, 'the light took J billion years to get to where we are now, so it's this close to the big bang!" thing is: wouldn't that assume that where the earth is now is where it would have been had it existed at the time of the big bang? The matter that now makes up the earth was a part of the big bang and so moved outward away from the site at a speed lower than that of light in a vacuum, no? So no matter how far back you look, you're NEVER going to see the beginnings of the universe, because the light from everything that happened around the time of the big bang radiated out past us and is already gone. The only things we can see are things that happened far enough away that the light has not yet reached us until now. Considering how slowly the universe must have expanded in real terms (unless they're saying it expanded near c), how is it even possible that it's anywhere close to 600m years after the big bang?
Someone please explain.

Re:How does this work?

[Anonymous Coward]

The universe expansion is not a speed, but a speed per unit of distance. If two points are far enough, the space between them can expand faster than c. Hope this helps.

Re:How does this work?

[fadethepolice]

I think it's because we are not looking at an object located at a specific time / distance,but we are searching all objects for the few that happen to be detected are at a similar vector from the point of origin as ours. So we are detecting things that originated at our location or a similar one a long time ago even if we were not there. Mentioned in the article is the fact that since we are able to detect this object which originated from that selected interval there must be a myriad of similar objects that actually behave in the way you describe.

Re:How does this work?

[dtml-try MyNick]

One thing to consider is that the speed of the expansion has been accelerating ever since it started.

Also "Considering how slowly the universe must have expanded in real terms"
As far as I understand 'slow' is not really a good description to describe what happened after the big bang. The expansion rate defied every form of physics as we know it.

But still, that universe at that place, in that form, at that time, we observing it, now, in this place, at this time....
It doesn't make sense to me either ;-)

Re:How does this work?

[Wolfbone]

You seem to be picturing the Big Bang as though it were like an explosion from a central site outwards. It wasn't like that at all: http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/bb_concepts.html

Re:How does this work?

[painandgreed]

So no matter how far back you look, you're NEVER going to see the beginnings of the universe, because the light from everything that happened around the time of the big bang radiated out past us and is already gone.

Actually, we see the beginnings of the big bang all around us. It's the cosmic microwave background radiation. Don't think of the radiation of the big bang as an explosion that would pass us up. Think instead of it as a cloud that filled the entire universe. As the universe expanded, the cloud still fills the universe, but is much 'thinner' so to speak due to an expanding universe and associated redshifting. By taking the detected CMBR and working backwards, we can determine roughly the conditions of the big bang at the time it no longer was opaque.

How fast was that galaxy moving?

[Just_Say_Duhhh]

So they're trying to tell me that within 600 million years of the big bang, that galaxy managed to get 13 billion light years away from where our galaxy now lies? Even if we and it are at opposite ends of the universe, it would have to have gotten 6.5 billion light years from the center of the universe in those 600 million years, yes? It sounds like it must have been going a bit over the speed limit, don't you think? It got that far away, and still had time to form into a galaxy? Why is my slide rule melting as I try to figure out how it got so far away so quickly? Maybe the light took 13 billion years to reach us, but it's been going around in circles? If so, that Galaxy might be a LOT closer, as the crow flies.

Re:How fast was that galaxy moving?

[Anonymous Coward]

The joke's on everyone: It's a giant mirror at the edge of the universe. UDFy-38135539 == Milky Way! :-)

Re:How fast was that galaxy moving?

[Woek]

Good question! I think it has something to do with the stretching of space-time. The galaxy was there 600 million years after the big bang, 13 billion light years from where we were going to be, but space-time (the universe) was smaller. In a way, the light-year was smaller than it is now, but that galaxy was still moving away from our location at nearly light speed.
What is interesting to me is that a galaxy could be formed at all in 600 million years!

Re:How fast was that galaxy moving?

[mfwitten]

Think of space as muffin batter, and think of the galaxies as chocolate chips in the batter; as this mixture bakes, the batter expands everywhere, and consequently the chocolate chips become farther apart from each other.

Or, think of space as a balloon, and think of the galaxies as little ink marks on the surface of the balloon; as air is pumped into the balloon, the surface of the balloon expands, and consequently the chocolate chips become farther apart from each other.

There is no central point from which galaxies were flung; after all, into what could they have been flung? Instead, the space between matter has expanded with time (and the greater the distance between two things, the greater the rate of expansion between them).

Re:How fast was that galaxy moving?

[wierd_w]

Like another person pointed out earlier, due to hubble's constant for the expansion of the universe, the rate of spacetime expansion can exceed C, given a sufficiently large starting distance.

That is to say, the reason it took 13 billion years to reach us, is because the intervening space between it and us is growing consistently to hubble's constant; Literally "New spacetime" is being injected between it and us.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble's_law

Basically, it is why there is a distinction between the "Observable universe", and "The universe". We cannot see all of the universe, because parts of it are so far away that the rate of expansion exceeds the speed of light, so that the light can never reach us.

Re:How fast was that galaxy moving?

[Anonymous Coward]

What's really going to blow your mind is that the observable universe is 90ish billion lys across. Space is expanding, and the expansion is accelerating. That makes it so there exists a distance where the space expanding between us and what we're trying to see moves us away at faster than lightspeed, thus, the light will never reach us. Look up the term "comoving distance".

Also: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=misconceptions-about-the-2005-03&page=5

Enjoy.

Re:How fast was that galaxy moving?

[Anonymous Coward]

Expansion of space has no speed limit (and is cumulative over distance).

Re:How fast was that galaxy moving?

[Anonymous Coward]

Light travels from the moment of The Big Bang until now approximately 14 billion years. And the speed of light is 300.000 km/s do the math. This discovery is big because now we can see how the early universe looked like which we are a part of, amazing. If you know the life spin of our universe, lets say that our universe is in its 40s, this means we are looking at our toddler pictures. Seeing this galaxy gives us glimpse in to the far past. What is there now lives only in your imagination because from that moment on that galaxy could have collided with another galaxy or was eaten by black hole or any other scenario you can come up with is plausible. Universe is so big.

Re:How fast was that galaxy moving?

[Anonymous Coward]

...the surface of the balloon expands, and consequently the chocolate chips become farther apart from each other.

I am intrigued by your ideas of chocolate chip balloons and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

Re:How fast was that galaxy moving?

[protodevilin]

Forgive my ignorance, but I was under the impression that Relativity defines the speed of light as basically the speed limit of the universe (stop me if I'm mistaken). This being the case, wouldn't it be impossible for the universe's rate of expansion to exceed the speed of light?

If not, it poses a few interesting scenarios. Let's say--for the sake of example--that this faster-than-light expansion carries a galaxy into my physical space. Since the light emitted by the galaxy has not yet reached me by the time its matter has, I would effectively be engulfed in an invisible galaxy.

Or have I oversimplified the concept?

Re:How fast was that galaxy moving?

[jtollefson]

But, is the galaxy traveling at the far edge of space traveling at the same speed as us. Has it slowed down?

Re:How fast was that galaxy moving?

[Anonymous Coward]

"c" is a speed limit for traveling through space, not for the expansion of space itself. And you missed that "expansion" means that galaxies move *away* from your physical space, otherwise it would be called "contraction".

Re:How fast was that galaxy moving?

[mr_gorkajuice]

It seems this new galaxy is right on the border of what part of the universe will ever be observable.
One parsec is 3.262 light years
13.1 billion light years = 3980 Mpc
Apparently, Hubbles constant places the rate of expansion at 77 (km/s) / Mpc:
77 (km/s) / Mpc * 3980 Mpc = 306460 km/s

So, this galaxy is moving away from us roughly at the speed of light. I guess that means time will appear to stand still when we observe that galaxy?

Re:How fast was that galaxy moving?

[mr_gorkajuice]

And what really makes my head spin: If this galaxy is moving away from us at the speed of light, and has been doing so for almost the entire age of the universe, doesn't that mean that it (and all observeable universe) started out from "our" position, even though the big bang should NOT be considered to extend from a central position?
Does the hubble constant change over time? By the time our universe is 20 billion years old, that galaxy will be 19.4 billion light years away. The above math would then result in the galaxy moving away at a speed greater than the speed of light. I guess we'll see time moving backwards?

Re:How fast was that galaxy moving?

[Anonymous Coward]

Astrophysicist here. Just to clarify, we will never know whether this galaxy exists at a point where in it's own reference frame the age of the Universe is 13.7 Gyrs. This is because this galaxy is out of our event horizon now, i.e., if we shone a light beam towards that galaxy today, then that light beam will never reach that galaxy. (This is true for all objects with redshift >~ 2 in the currently favored cosmological model.)

We can see the light from the galaxy today because the light was emitted in the distant past and the rate of expansion was slower then. Hence the distinction between observable Universe and causally connected. This galaxy is observable but not causally connected to our Galaxy (and vice-versa).

Re:How fast was that galaxy moving?

[Rich0]

The speed of light is the speed limit of anything that has mass in the universe. Space itself does not have mass.

It is also a relative thing. Any two nearby points in the universe are moving apart very slowly. However, over large distances that expansion accumulates until you reach points that are expanding at C, or above.

That galaxy is moving at a fairly ordinary pace compared to anything near to it. That entire region of the universe is moving away quickly.

This is where the red shift comes from.

Re:How fast was that galaxy moving?

[Anonymous Coward]

Uncontrolled expansion of the universe would be chaos. Order exists in the physical universe to control chaos. That force can be seen in this formula. DIe.

Re:How fast was that galaxy moving?

[nrjyzerbuny]

And what really makes my head spin: If this galaxy is moving away from us at the speed of light, and has been doing so for almost the entire age of the universe, doesn't that mean that it (and all observable universe) started out from "our" position, even though the big bang should NOT be considered to extend from a central position?

Yes, in that the universe was a point at the beginning, therefore 'our position' was at the center of it, as was the position of everything else in the universe. It might be more accurate to say that instead of this galaxy moving away from us, the space between our galaxies is expanding. All of space is expanding, with gravity keeping structures at the galaxy/local group level close enough together that they do not expand themselves.

By the time our universe is 20 billion years old, that galaxy will be 19.4 billion light years away. The above math would then result in the galaxy moving away at a speed greater than the speed of light. I guess we'll see time moving backwards?

Nope, actually we won't see anything at all, as the light emitted by this galaxy will never be able to reach us. The light from this galaxy will redshift to a greater degree until no more information reaches us.

Re:How fast was that galaxy moving?

[Anonymous Coward]

See Also: The Great Expansion

-AC

Re:How fast was that galaxy moving?

[jheath314]

The speed of light is the limit on how fast you can move relative to your spacetime reference frame. Spacetime itself can move at any arbitrary speed... for example, the speed of spacetime flowing into a black hole exceeds the speed of light inside the event horizon (as far as we know). This is why it's impossible to escape once you've crossed the horizon... your maximum speed relative to space time is less than c, while the spacetime your moving against is moving inwards faster than c, dragging you backwards like a powerful river overcoming a slow swimmer.

Re:How fast was that galaxy moving?

[Anonymous Coward]

>parts of it are so far away that the rate of expansion exceeds the speed of light, so that the light can never reach us.

No- if that were true, we would not see the CMB radiation.

I believe the point where distant parts of the universe slip "over the horizon" will be at about 18By of age..

Re:How fast was that galaxy moving?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, I hadn't considered that. Seems so obvious now.
 
Thanks for the explanation.

Space is a big place....

[dtml-try MyNick]

If it emitted this light 13 billion years ago then at that point it was the edge of the universe
We know that the universe has been expanding since it started, so we're not looking at the edge right now. We're looking at what used to be the edge.

What boggles my mind however, If at a mere 600 million years after the big bang the universe already expanded to that size. How big and vast must it be by now? Truly mindblowing. Almost literally when I try to imagine.

Re:Space is a big place....

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is my question. According to the most current theories I have read, at some point after the big bang, the universe underwent a period of faster than light inflation. Which apparently is possible due to the fact that nothing was actually moving faster than light, just new space was being created between objects making them move apart at ftl speeds. Does this kind of narrow down the timeframe of when that happened? If this galaxy was moving ftl, how could we see it? At the very least, would not the light from it have redshifted to extreme frequencies due to its relative velocity? Or is the ftl expansion the reason that this is the oldest galaxy we have seen? Maybe before 13.1 billion years ago, everything was expanding at ftl rates, and the light will never reach us. Or would the light emitted catch back up once the rate of expansion slowed back to sub-light? If that is the case, could we even tell if the age of the emitted light was greater than the distance of the galaxy that emitted it, thus proving the ftl expansion theory? Forgive me if none of this makes sense. I never went to college and I work at a gas station.

Re:Space is a big place....

[VShael]

"Does this kind of narrow down the timeframe of when that happened?"

No, observing this galaxy has nothing really to do with Inflation.

"If this galaxy was moving ftl, "

It wasn't. It isn't. The relative distance between them and us may be increasing faster than c. But that doesn't mean that that galaxy is moving faster than c.

Most of your other questions are similarly based on misunderstandings.

And Why Isn't It Backlit?

[Nom du Keyboard]

And why isn't this galaxy backlit by the overwhelming brightness of the Big Bang itself? It would seem if you looked just a little bit further back in time everything ought to be one gigantnormous flash bulb.

Re:And Why Isn't It Backlit?

[Neil Boekend]

In a way it is. Everything is. The cosmic background radiation simply has so much redshift it's shifted to microwave (redshift of over 1000). WMAP has made a picture.
Note that this glow isn't from the Big Bang itself. The universe was so hot (over a billion K) it wasn't transparent yet. There were no protons and neutrons, only a superheated quark soup. The signal WMAP captured was from about 400.000.000 years later: when the universe expanded and cooled enough to get transparent.

Re:And Why Isn't It Backlit?

[Anonymous Coward]

We do actually see that; it's called the Cosmic Microwave Background. It was blindingly bright around 13.7 billion years ago, but as space-time expanded, all of that energy was diluted throughout the huge volume of the universe and now it's hard to even see.

Re:And Why Isn't It Backlit?

[qmaqdk]

And why isn't this galaxy backlit by the overwhelming brightness of the Big Bang itself? It would seem if you looked just a little bit further back in time everything ought to be one gigantnormous flash bulb.

That gigantnormous flash bulb is on. Right now. It's called cosmic microwave background radiation. Only we can't see it with the naked eye because of the expansion of the universe.

No, no, no. That's not right.

[SilasMortimer]

The Earth is 6500 years old, or approximately 12000 metric years. The heavens were created at the same time, so we can only assume that the universe itself is 6500 years old, as well.

So if this galaxy was created 600 million years after the creation of the universe, then it exists 599,993,500 years in the future. Adjust for inflation and it's approximately 13.1 billion years in the future. We could be seeing our future selves.

But Armageddon is going to happen in 2012, right? Is God playing tricks on us again?

That reminds me of a joke...

Knock. Knock.
Who's there?
Armageddon.
Armageddon who?
Armageddon tired of waiting for you to open the door!

appealing to science

[KharmaWidow]

... how can a vacuum, with no physical or chemical properties, go 'bang?'

Re:appealing to science

[perpenso]

... how can a vacuum, with no physical or chemical properties, go 'bang?'

There was no vacuum yet. There was a "point" of stuff/energy we can't really describe very well that expanded *very* quickly. Referring to this expansion as an "explosion" or "bang" is just a convenient analogy.

FWIW, the phrase "big bang" was coined by opponents of the theory. It was an attempt to mock the theory.

Re:appealing to science

[KharmaWidow]

Well, where did that stuff and energy come from?

Can a galaxy form in such a short period of time?

[master_p]

So can a galaxy be created in 600 million years?

The galaxy is backlit ...

[perpenso]

And why isn't this galaxy backlit by the overwhelming brightness of the Big Bang itself? It would seem if you looked just a little bit further back in time everything ought to be one gigantnormous flash bulb.

The galaxy is backlit, the "flash" is merely at microwave frequencies not visible light frequencies: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_background_radiation.

it is 40 billion light years from us

[Anonymous Coward]

The light has traveled for 13.1 billion years while the universe has kept expanding.
The galaxy is now 3 times that distance from us.
sheesh call yourselves nerds ....
see ned wrights tutorial here:
http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/cosmolog.htm

MOD PARENT UP

[CheeseyDJ]

Excellent answer.

AGE vs SIZE of the unverse

[XARG]

I am surprised to see so many comments without even one mentioning the difference between the AGE of the Universe (13.7 billion l.y. ) and the SIZE of the observable universe (radius 47 billion l.y.).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observable_universe

From the Wiki Article:
  The age of the Universe is estimated to be 13.7 billion years. While it is commonly understood that nothing travels faster than light, it is a common misconception that the radius of the observable universe must therefore amount to only 13.7 billion light-years. This reasoning makes sense only if the Universe is the flat spacetime of special relativity; in the real Universe, spacetime is highly curved on cosmological scales, which means that 3-space (which is roughly flat) is expanding, as evidenced by Hubble's law. Distances obtained as the speed of light multiplied by a cosmological time interval have no direct physical significance.[11]

So, the light from this Galaxy actually traveled more than 13.7 billion years (I don't know how to make the conversion but probably around 45 billion ?)

XARG.

Philosopher Kings

[srussia]

You might be tickled to learn that there are some (wild-ish) theories that posit "every mathematical abstraction exists", as in, for every concept you can derive from mathematics, it actually exists "somewhere". Look at "mathematical multiverse" here http://space.mit.edu/home/tegmark/crazy.html And Tegmark is not actually a crackpot, just fanciful. :)

Paraphrasing ontologist Bill Clinton: "It depends on your definition of 'exists'". For epistemological questions I refer you to Donald Rumsfeld.

Re:Can a galaxy form in such a short period of tim

[Combatso]

maybe this ne was born from the "Medium" bang.. it happened about a billion years before the big bang, but only about 400 million years after the little bang.

Re:Can a galaxy form in such a short period of tim

[BeardedChimp]

Considering that they have observed a galaxy that appears to be 600 million years old I would say the answer is yes.

Theorists could spend 10 years working out that by best estimates 700 million years is the earliest, but it only takes (repeated) observation to prove them wrong.

galaxy?

[yalin]

how do you know it's a galaxy? what you see is just a dot. maybe it's an object that we have never seen before. or maybe it's the hole god peeks us??

Re:Can a galaxy form in such a short period of tim

[mdsolar]

Yes. The fluctuations in density seen in the cosmic microwave background are large enough that some can collapse under gravity to galaxy massed globs within a few hundred million years. What has been more of a mystery is how stars can form since gas needs to cool to condense enough to form stars and big bang gas is very clean and has a hard time cooling radiatively. One might think that only very massive stars might form but then this would never dirty up the gas since they would soon collapse to back holes and never release processed material back to their surroundings. However, pair instability supernovae disrupt their cores when they explode and likely seed protogalaxies particularly with oxygen which, when combined with abundant hydrogen, can form ice and allow normal cooling of gas for star formation. One bit of evidence that ice is important comes from the infrared emission of an early quasar: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2008ApJ...686..251D

Not the edge!

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny how they say "the edge of the Universe"... From what I've read, it seems there is no physical edge, only a time-base edge (the big bang) and that's only the starting edge, not the outward one (since we don't know the lifespan of the universe...)

You know, count yourself lucky, because based on all we know, the Universe and everything in it is actually impossible...

And don't say "God did it", that's what you tell your kids to stop asking questions, but you know it's not the answer...

 

"At the edge of the universe"

[Sevorus]

Actually, what you mean is the edge of the observable universe. If any of the inflationary models are correct there may be way, way more universe out there beyond this little blob of light, they're just cut off from observation here because the light from them hasn't had time to reach us since the inflationary phase ended. If, as is probably the case, we're in another phase of accelerating inflation, we'll never see beyond this horizon because the space between here and there is expanding faster than the speed of the light, so it'll never get here.

Re:Can a galaxy form in such a short period of tim

[Anonymous Coward]

Evidence (this galaxy) seems to indicate that yes, it can.

twinkle twinkle little photon

[v1]

the light from this far-flung object has been traveling a whopping 13.1 billion years to get here!

What really boggles my mind is that we can detect it at all. Considering the enormous travel time, and thus the enormous distance, and that radiant power is what, quartered every time you double the distance, I'm just amazed we get any photons at all from there. At that distance, the shell of photons it emitted 13 billion years ago have got to be pretty spread out, and we'd almost be able to count them coming in, one every few minutes at best?

Re:twinkle twinkle little photon

[aminorex]

hubble has a 2.4 m2 reflector. estimate the galaxy at 4x10E37 watts, with 2.5e18 photons per watt, and you get about 1200 photons per second. there are a LOT of stars in a galaxy.

Re:twinkle twinkle little photon

[Rockoon]

Considering the enormous travel time, and thus the enormous distance, and that radiant power is what, quartered every time you double the distance, I'm just amazed we get any photons at all from there.

It doesnt take all that many doublings to reach the end of the universe.

The difference between 8 light minutes (distance to the sun) and 12.1 billion light years only is 49.56 doublings.

Re:twinkle twinkle little photon

[shadowbearer]

  Someday, probably within your lifetime, we may have some really serious telescopes out beyond earth orbit, that can take exposures whose times are measured in months or years.

  SB

Its sooo far away

[drewsup]

Bill Shatner still has dignity there! (obligatory Undiscovered Country reference)

The important point

[FauxPasIII]

At warp 9 (STNG scale) it would take round about 8.64 million years to get there.

Galatic Overloard

[SnarfQuest]

So, I can create a galaxy in less than 600 million years. If I do this, then nobody better complain when I become its Galatic Overloard!

Speed of Light and the Age of the Universe

[TomcatDO]

Maybe I'm a bit dense, but the math just doesn't work out for me. Age of our Universe: 13.75 Billion year Distance from this newly found galaxy to our galaxy: 13.1 Billion Light years Let's assume they are estimating the distance based on the current distance plus the speed our two galaxies are moving (based on the red shift). Wouldn't the two galaxies need to be separating at nearly the speed of light to be 13.1 billion light years apart? Doesn't the mass of the two galaxies prohibit them from moving that fast? By my journeyman calculations, each galaxy would need to be moving at ((13.1 / 13.75) / 2) or 47.6% of the speed of light to be 13.1 billion light years apart after 13.75 billion years. 47.6% of the speed of light is 318,729,600 mph or 513,604,000 kph.

Re:Speed of Light and the Age of the Universe

[Maury Markowitz]

No one is moving. Everything is sitting relatively still. The space between them, and everything else, is expanding. That expansion is uniform and fast.

Re:Speed of Light and the Age of the Universe

[VShael]

You are still picturing space as static and the galaxies as in motion. That is where you are going wrong.

Space itself is expanding. So the relative distance between us and them increases, but that doesn't mean that the other galaxy is *moving* at close to the speed to light.

Re:Can a galaxy form in such a short period of tim

[Anonymous Coward]

That question is normally flaimbait for slashdot, isn't it? The question take a stance on creation of a galaxy and wouldn't that require a creator. Astronomy and science in general hasn't evolved that far yet, and is still in the 'awe' state of observation and continue to define the physical limitations of any possible creator.

...and what is really real?

[Smock-Jata Babushka]

The sphere would have to be outside the orbit of the moon. People have gone to the moon, and returned, so they couldn't have been destroyed by the barrier. ...Or is Aldrin really a robot probe from "out there", sent down to record and report?