Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Record-Breaking Galaxy Found In Deep Hubble Image

Posted by samzenpus on from the old-neighborhood dept.

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."

16 of 196 comments (clear)

  1. Does it still exist? by Dyinobal · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:Does it still exist? by Brad1138 · · Score: 4, Informative

      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.

      --
      If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
    2. Re:Does it still exist? by Lanteran · · Score: 4, Informative

      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.

      --
      "People don't want to learn linux" hasn't been a valid excuse since '03.
    3. Re:Does it still exist? by modmans2ndcoming · · Score: 4, Informative

      according to relativity, if we see it it exists.

    4. Re:Does it still exist? by theantipop · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Mathematics.

    5. Re:Does it still exist? by yariv · · Score: 4, Informative

      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...

    6. Re:Does it still exist? by PinkyGigglebrain · · Score: 3, Interesting

      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.

    7. Re:Does it still exist? by nacturation · · Score: 3, Informative

      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.

      --
      Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
    8. Re:Does it still exist? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      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.

    9. Re:Does it still exist? by UCSCTek · · Score: 3, Informative

      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. :)

    10. Re:Does it still exist? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

    11. Re:Does it still exist? by CrashandDie · · Score: 4, Funny

      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.

  2. Record breaking by DavMz · · Score: 3, Interesting

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

  3. Re:How fast was that galaxy moving? by wierd_w · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  4. AGE vs SIZE of the unverse by XARG · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  5. Philosopher Kings by srussia · · Score: 3, Funny

    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.

    --
    Set your phasers on "funky"!