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

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?

[BizzyM]

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

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: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?

[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?

[Literaryhero]

So we should name it Schrodinger's Galaxy?

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!

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.

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:Does it still exist?

[mcgrew]

You know what Hawking says about Schrödinger.

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!