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Hubble Shatters the Cosmic Distance Record

An anonymous reader writes: One of the holy grails of cosmology is to measure, directly, exactly when the first stars and galaxies formed in our Universe. The Hubble Space Telescope has been pushing the distance record farther and farther back, with its measurements typically confirmed by ground-based, spectroscopic follow-ups. This time, however, the new record-holder was so distant that confirmation needed to be done from space: by Hubble itself. The result? A galaxy at a redshift of z=11.1, from when the Universe was just 400 million years old, or a mere 3% of its current age. This is a record that will likely stand until the James Webb Space Telescope launches, as it took a combination of incredible work and incredible luck to find a galaxy this far back with our current technology.

65 comments

  1. STOP! Pushing Forbes for Science articles!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    For fuck sake! STOP! Pushing Forbes for Science articles!!!

    1. Re:STOP! Pushing Forbes for Science articles!!! by JaredOfEuropa · · Score: 2

      Yeah, "An anonymous reader writes" my left foot.

      --
      If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
    2. Re:STOP! Pushing Forbes for Science articles!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      My left foot.

    3. Re:STOP! Pushing Forbes for Science articles!!! by Harold+Halloway · · Score: 3, Funny

      Yeah, "An anonymous reader writes" my left foot.

      No, Christy Brown wrote 'My Left Foot.'

    4. Re:STOP! Pushing Forbes for Science articles!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      New owners need to promote their new acquisition. /. is like a shitty reddit or the old digg. Anything that'll generate clicks gets posted.

    5. Re:STOP! Pushing Forbes for Science articles!!! by Hussman32 · · Score: 3, Informative

      To be fair, the first link is to NASA.

      --
      "Who are you?" "No one of consequence." "I must know." "Get used to disappointment."
  2. Block or identify Forbes paid links by Thanshin · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Has Forbes any kind of business relation with Slashdot? I can't find another explanation for the repetitive insistance on linking to it.

    It this behavior is going to continue, paid links should at least be identified, so those of us who won't ever whitelist Forbes in our adblocks don't have to hover every link to avoid opening the Forbes spam over and over again.

    1. Re:Block or identify Forbes paid links by Teun · · Score: 1

      I hope the following link doesn't hurt any cultural or linguistic sensitivities but it's an article on the subject from the largest Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf.

      http://www.telegraaf.nl/binnen...

      --
      "The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
    2. Re:Block or identify Forbes paid links by Thanshin · · Score: 1

      Google Translated version:

      https://translate.google.com/t...

    3. Re: Block or identify Forbes paid links by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Funny to compare "Hubble telescope found" vs "three wise men from Leiden found a star"

    4. Re: Block or identify Forbes paid links by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > She saw a light just after the Big Bang

      So that's what she said

    5. Re:Block or identify Forbes paid links by czert · · Score: 2

      I wish I had mod points. Every fucking week there's several stories like this. A headline that seems interesting, only to find out it's on Forbes and written by that StartsWithABang idiot. Slashdot, stop wasting my time with this shit!

    6. Re:Block or identify Forbes paid links by fbobraga · · Score: 1

      Hi again. Looks like youâ(TM)re still using an ad blocker. Please turn it off in order to continue into Forbes' ad-light experience.

      fuck this shit!

    7. Re:Block or identify Forbes paid links by fbobraga · · Score: 1

      I hope the following link doesn't hurt any cultural or linguistic sensitivities

      FYI: it's not "any cultural or linguistic sensitivities", its the "cannot browse with ad-blocker" behavior of forbes.com

    8. Re: Block or identify Forbes paid links by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Interesting. Refractor Telescopes are obviously Male, jutting their rigid protuberances upward, but Reflector Telescopes are Female, pulling whatever Photons that are sprayed at them deep inside.
      Excuse me while I check out the Centerfold in this month's "Sky And Telescope"...

    9. Re:Block or identify Forbes paid links by Coren22 · · Score: 1

      If they were truly honest, wouldn't that be ad-light, but malware heavy browsing experience?

      --
      APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
    10. Re:Block or identify Forbes paid links by Gavagai80 · · Score: 1

      These are not paid links. whipslash has even edited out forbes links from past summaries after noticing the comment complaints. The explanation is simple: lazy editors who don't look at what they're publishing.

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      This space intentionally left blank
    11. Re:Block or identify Forbes paid links by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Lets not be coy: The lazy editor who used the Forbes link is, of course, Timothy

  3. Thanks but no thanks... by QuantumLeaper · · Score: 4, Insightful

    When a site does let you in just because you have an Ad Blocker, mean I won't use it, I don't mind if they bitch about having an Ad Blocker but Forbes doesn't even let you past, of F*k off is all I have to say to them.

  4. Fuck ass Siegel!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Fuck you whore Siegel bitch. Fuck off!!

  5. Do NOT say SHATTERS when a mirror is involved by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Say, breaks.

  6. And nobody by no-body · · Score: 2

    absolutely nobody knows what happened before this last Big Bang which supposedly started this universe..

    Another apparent joke seems to be a recent computer simulation stating, that the chance that the only earth-like inhabitable planet is this earth, is high.
    And this out of how many super-clusters consisting of spiral galaxies, with a total number of stars going into what - trillions...

    And the gods exhaled... well, from where, what and when did they inhale to be able to exhale?

    1. Re:And nobody by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 5, Funny

      Someone's been inhaling something...

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    2. Re:And nobody by dremon · · Score: 1

      Trillions is not infinite and so may very well fit into the product of certain probabilities.

    3. Re:And nobody by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It is not even known whether it makes sense at all to say ‘before the Big Bang’. If time-space curves back into itself as you go near it, going backwards in time might lead you to go sideways in space, or even forwards in time again!

    4. Re:And nobody by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You're assuming that time and space are concepts which have eternal and infinite validity.
      Just because we (or you) can't conceive of something does not mean that it cannot be.

    5. Re:And nobody by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      absolutely nobody knows what happened before this last Big Bang which supposedly started this universe..

      Forbes know, but you'll need to turn off your Ad Blocker to find out.

    6. Re:And nobody by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There are roughly 10^29 stars in the universe.

    7. Re:And nobody by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      That article you referred to mentioned that it was using current exoplanet data, so it would be skewed to the larger planets we tend to find due to our techniques. As better data becomes available it would be surprising if it didn't project more Earth-like planets.

    8. Re: And nobody by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Most studies based on extrapolating from exoplanet data take into account sensitivities to things like size and try to factor that out. They can still get the distribution wrong, but it is possible for more observations to go either way. As in they may be either overestimating or underestimating populations of small planets, and you can't assume it must be an underestimate.

    9. Re:And nobody by Coren22 · · Score: 1

      Another apparent joke seems to be a recent computer simulation stating, that the chance that the only earth-like inhabitable planet is this earth, is high.

      The very same simulation indicated Earth itself shouldn't exist. I would suggest that it is the simulation that needs work, not reality.

      --
      APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
    10. Re: And nobody by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Trillions is not anywhere near close. There are hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy alone. That is a fair chunk of a trillion by itself. There are billions upon billions of other galaxies that we can see. Untold billions more that we can't.

    11. Re:And nobody by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Put another way, there are roughly 166,000 moles of stars in the known universe. If each star were a water molecule, there would be about 2,990 L of them, or approximately enough to fill an inflatable swimming pool.

    12. Re:And nobody by tigersha · · Score: 1

      Thanks, that was actually interesting!

      --
      The dangers of excessive individualism are nothing compared to the oppressiveness of excessive collectivism
  7. Best Multimedia Institutes in Hyderabad DigiQuest by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0


    It is Good article,Information is nice

  8. Re:Thanks but no thanks... by JaredOfEuropa · · Score: 3, Insightful

    F*k off is all I have to say to them

    I think that sentiment is mutual. Ads provide them with income and if you block them they don't want you there. Which is fine: their house, their rules. Should Slashdot link to such sites though? I don't know... what I do know is that Slashdot should stop linking to Forbes because it's a rubbish magazine: the articles are often about highly interesting subjects but they lack substance, and in most cases there are far better (and free) alternative sources.

    --
    If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
  9. That is such a nice blob by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I truly think that slashdot should post more articles which appear one the msn.com site and are widely regarded as meaningful and interesting
    this to offset the blabbering amount of meaningless scientific innuendos which are found on this slashdot site.

    PS. that's a nice patch of pixels, how many levels of the game of life did they have to run to get at that tiny picture?

    [wdw]

  10. Re:Thanks but no thanks... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And are Forbes paying the people that created the research and the papers, or the site where they copied it from? No! They're just scraping articles from elsewhere. Forbes are a middle-man and need not exist. Their sole purpose is to take other peoples' work, present it under their own brand to pull in eyeballs - just to sell advert space. Fuck 'em! That's their singular mandate. Their customers are those that place adverts, that's all they care about.

  11. A sign about the new management? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This is one of the things which was discussed when there were requests for simple improvements so it's not something the new owners are unaware of. They are a publishing (and thus partly advertising) company. This is the time when they have to make a stand. Are they for acceptable (small a) advertising or are they going to push everyone to full on ad-blocking?

    Demands for a fair slashdot:

    • make a list of known malvertisers and block all links to them
    • change all Forbes links for some other better source - there should be no link to ever to Forbes
    • do not link to sites which try to ban ad blockers
    • try to aim for Nerd sites - think NASA / ESA / actual physicists - rather than mass market news sites
    • try to give a link to the original paper or preprint in one of the physics archives

    CAPTCHA: outburst - hopefully of common sense but I doubt it.

    1. Re:A sign about the new management? by arth1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Indeed. And even if the new owners don't want to ban a site on the ideological grounds that it bans adblock users, they should at least see that this is disruptive.

      We get more irritated people talking about Forbes than the actual subject, and irritated people aren't wont to return for more.
      Internet users are fickle, and will leave if you give them reasons to. We are relatively thick skinned here, but the glass is overflowing, so don't keep adding drops of piss to it..

      Forbes goes, or I go. And presumably a lot of other oldtimers go too.

    2. Re:A sign about the new management? by Gavagai80 · · Score: 1

      The new owners have already edited some past summaries to change the forbes links to less offensive links. Unfortunately they haven't automated the blocking of forbes yet and they're continuing the slashdot tradition of "editors" not reading what they publish before they publish it.

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      This space intentionally left blank
    3. Re:A sign about the new management? by whipslash · · Score: 2

      We removed the Forbes link. Will do better in the future.

    4. Re:A sign about the new management? by whipslash · · Score: 2

      Forbes link removed

    5. Re:A sign about the new management? by painandgreed · · Score: 1

      Forbes link removed

      Thank you.

  12. Why is Slashdot promoting broken links? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Hi again. Looks like you’re still using an ad blocker. Please turn it off in order to continue into Forbes' ad-light experience."

    Why do you promote it? You are just spreading broken browsing experience. Please stop. Now.

  13. This is why its stupid to look for aliens by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "...Universe was just 400 million years old, or a mere 3% of its current age"

    Because math. We need a few more hundred thousand years in the very least of being in town.

  14. Ok fúck off again Slashdot... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Back to boycotting Slashdot, after I've just gotten over the Beta disaster...fúck you lot, if you don't have basic respect for your community, to not constantly link websites that a huge portion of the community is calling on you to stop posting, then just fúck off again for another couple of years, before I try giving the site my attention again...

    1. Re:Ok fúck off again Slashdot... by whipslash · · Score: 1

      We will stop linking to it. However the first link is the primary NASA source. These articles are user submitted and voted up in the firehose.

  15. TFA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    Thanks to an incredible combination of luck, technology and human ingenuity, the Hubble Space Telescope has identified, measured and confirmed a galaxy farther away in space — and closer to the Big Bang — than ever before. Because the Universe is expanding, and the fabric of space in between galaxies expands as time goes on, the more distant a galaxy actually is, the more its emitted light gets stretched (or redshifted) before it reaches our eyes. Previously, the Universe’s most distant galaxy was known as EGS8p7, whose light was redshifted by an extra factor of 8.63 before it reached our eyes, telling us that it must have come from 13.24 billion years ago: when the Universe was just 573 million years old, or only 4% of its current age. But that record has been shattered, announced an international team of scientists using the Hubble Space Telescope.

    The newest record-holder has had its light redshifted by a whopping factor of 11.1, meaning the light is even older: it was emitted 13.40 billion years ago, when the Universe was only 407 million years old, or closer in time to the Big Bang than any other galaxy ever seen before. “We’ve taken a major step back in time, beyond what we’d ever expected to be able to do with Hubble. We see GN-z11 at a time when the universe was only three percent of its current age,” announced Pascal Oesch, the principal investigator of this project. You have to be extremely not just skilled, but also extremely lucky to see a galaxy this far back in time using the Hubble Space Telescope.

    Thanks to an incredible combination of luck, technology and human ingenuity, the Hubble Space Telescope has identified, measured and confirmed a galaxy farther away in space — and closer to the Big Bang — than ever before. Because the Universe is expanding, and the fabric of space in between galaxies expands as time goes on, the more distant a galaxy actually is, the more its emitted light gets stretched (or redshifted) before it reaches our eyes. Previously, the Universe’s most distant galaxy was known as EGS8p7, whose light was redshifted by an extra factor of 8.63 before it reached our eyes, telling us that it must have come from 13.24 billion years ago: when the Universe was just 573 million years old, or only 4% of its current age. But that record has been shattered, announced an international team of scientists using the Hubble Space Telescope.

    The newest record-holder has had its light redshifted by a whopping factor of 11.1, meaning the light is even older: it was emitted 13.40 billion years ago, when the Universe was only 407 million years old, or closer in time to the Big Bang than any other galaxy ever seen before. “We’ve taken a major step back in time, beyond what we’d ever expected to be able to do with Hubble. We see GN-z11 at a time when the universe was only three percent of its current age,” announced Pascal Oesch, the principal investigator of this project. You have to be extremely not just skilled, but also extremely lucky to see a galaxy this far back in time using the Hubble Space Telescope.

    The skill part is knowing that only the brightest galaxies at these great distances will be visible, since the apparent brightness falls off as the distance-to-the-source squared. The brightest light generated comes from the hottest, most massive stars, which not only predominantly emit ultraviolet light, but which ionize hydrogen atoms, causing the brightest and most powerful transition of all in a hydrogen atom: the Lyman- line, which comes at a wavelength of just 121.567 nanometers, well out of the visible-light range of ~400 to 700 nanometers. As you look farther and farther away, the redshift takes effect, meaning that this line gets shifted all the way through the visible light and into the infrared: to a new wavelength of 121.567 × (1 + 11.1), where 11.1 is the redshift, or 1471 nanometers. Hubble is equipped with a spectrograph, meaning it can break up the light into the individual

  16. Re:Thanks but no thanks... by Kernel+Krumpit · · Score: 1

    Apparently it is not all ad-blockers that Forbes blocks. I use uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger [FF] and a couple of thousand entries in an Hosts file. I see the Forbes article just fine.

    --
    May the lies we live by make us strong, healthy, happy and wise - Kurt Vonnegut.
  17. good non-forbes link by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 2

    http://www.spacetelescope.org/...

    hey slashdot editors, if you are reporting about space and/or science, stick with links to websites dedicated to that topic!

    --
    Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
  18. StartWithABang is posting anonymously by thegarbz · · Score: 2

    Well there's an interesting development, the story was *apparently* not submitted by StartsWithABang. But it's still his damn blog and the same damn summary that instantly makes it obvious who wrote it and that the link will end on the turd forbes.

    So did Whiplash block StartsWithABlog from posting and now he's coming in through the back way?
    I can't help but notice it was timothy again who edited and posted it to the front page. Is he on the take?

  19. A better story by fnj · · Score: 3, Informative

    Here is a site reporting this story which is (1) NOT a disgusting malvertising tool like Forbes, and (2) a little closer to the source.

  20. Re:Thanks but no thanks... by Bite+The+Pillow · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Even worse, the NASA site renders nothing with javascript disabled.

    I can understand a site blocking users that don't generate revenue, but requiring scripts to display information funded by taxes doesn't feel right.

  21. Soylent News did not link to Forbes by Opyros · · Score: 1

    in their coverage of this story. Just sayin'.

  22. Re:Thanks but no thanks... by whipslash · · Score: 1

    Link removed. We will do better in the future.

  23. Is it just me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    or did the forbes link disappear? Maybe someone's actually listening?

    1. Re:Is it just me by whipslash · · Score: 1

      Yes I am listening. Forbes link is gone

  24. Distance question by nycsubway · · Score: 1

    So, why are we able to see 13.4 billion light years away, but not able to see that last 0.4 billion? Is it just by chance that our telescopes are almost powerful enough to see the edge, or is there some other thing at the edge that's preventing us from seeing all the way through?

    1. Re:Distance question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think it comes down to, "There is a lot of stuff in the way."

  25. Age of universe by GPS+Pilot · · Score: 1

    Sometimes, this type of discovery leads to a revision of the estimate of the age of the universe. (The reasoning being, how could structure X have formed only Y million years after the big bang?)

    Has anyone seen that happening this time around?

    --
    That that is is that that that that is not is not.
  26. Re:Thanks but no thanks... by x_t0ken_407 · · Score: 1

    I'm in using uBlock & uMatrix. What do you use? Something with more granularity might help. There are a couple forbes subdomains I need to allow in uMatrix, but none that are on a blacklist (for ad horseshit, etc.)

  27. Re:Thanks but no thanks... by tigersha · · Score: 1

    Requiring the tax payer to spend zillions of dollars to pay web developer to go through all the hoops to make the website work with 90's technology to satisfy the whims of stubborn nerds is the real problem.

    Do you also insist on gopher and a newsfeed?

    --
    The dangers of excessive individualism are nothing compared to the oppressiveness of excessive collectivism