16 replies to this topic

[Waspie_Dwarf]

Discovery of the most distant galaxy in the cosmic dawn

phys.org said:

A team of astronomers led by Takatoshi Shibuya, Dr. Nobunari Kashikawa, Dr. Kazuaki Ota, and Dr. Masanori Iye (National Astronomical Observatory of Japan) has used the Subaru and Keck Telescopes to discover the most distant galaxy ever found, SXDF-NB1006-2, at a distance of 12.91 billion light years from the Earth.
Read more...

[wingyflam]

Happy birthday to you happy birthday to you........

[Abramelin]

If they are able to look a bit farther into space, they will see God's finger:

 god's_finger.jpg   38.1K   17 downloads

[Taun]

I wonder if someday, they will have instruments sensitive enough to look back and see the 'first glow' after the 'bang' (or whatever)...

[ZaraKitty]

I wonder what the big bang will look like.. or if they can see past it.

[Mr Right Wing]

Taun, on 13 June 2012 - 12:51 PM, said:

I wonder if someday, they will have instruments sensitive enough to look back and see the 'first glow' after the 'bang' (or whatever)...

Its worse than that

What many devout followers of the Big Bang dont know is scientists know of several stars which appear to be older then the universe.

[Horus Christos]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but what I understand is that there was no light in the universe until the first stars ignited, about 300,000 years after the big bang. It would therefore be impossible to gaze past this "light horizon" and "see" the big bang itself...and impossible to see any stars, much less galaxies, older than 13.4 million years old (if the date of the big bang in the article is correct).

[Taun]

Horus Christos, on 13 June 2012 - 01:40 PM, said:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but what I understand is that there was no light in the universe until the first stars ignited, about 300,000 years after the big bang. It would therefore be impossible to gaze past this "light horizon" and "see" the big bang itself...and impossible to see any stars, much less galaxies, older than 13.4 million years old (if the date of the big bang in the article is correct).

That's why I said 'first glow'...

As to the stars that appear older than the universe, maybe they are... but, maybe there is an inherent error in our measuring system...

I am on the fence as to whether there was a 'big bang' or not... currently I'm leaning to our universe being an energy 'bubble' created by two (or more) M-branes colliding (like two sheets on a clothes line)... My opinion may change over time - it has in the past...

[Waspie_Dwarf]

Horus Christos, on 13 June 2012 - 01:40 PM, said:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but what I understand is that there was no light in the universe until the first stars ignited, about 300,000 years after the big bang. It would therefore be impossible to gaze past this "light horizon" and "see" the big bang itself...and impossible to see any stars, much less galaxies, older than 13.4 million years old (if the date of the big bang in the article is correct).

You are essentially correct, although not because of the lack of stars. Wikipedia explains it better than me:

Quote

After the Big Bang, the universe was a hot, dense plasma of photons, electrons, and protons. This plasma was effectively opaque to electromagnetic radiation, as the distance each photon could travel before encountering a charged particle was very short. As the universe expanded, it also cooled. Eventually, the universe cooled to the point that the formation of neutral hydrogen was energetically favored, and the fraction of free electrons and protons as compared to neutral hydrogen decreased to about 1 part in 10,000. Shortly after, photons decoupled from matter in the universe, which leads to recombination sometimes being called photon decoupling, although recombination and photon decoupling are distinct events. Once photons decoupled from matter, they traveled freely through the universe without interacting with matter, and constitute what we observe today as cosmic microwave background radiation. Recombination occurred when the universe was roughly 300,000 years old

Source: Wikipedia

[Waspie_Dwarf]

Mr Right Wing, on 13 June 2012 - 01:06 PM, said:

Its worse than that

What many devout followers of the Big Bang dont know is scientists know of several stars which appear to be older then the universe.

Taun, on 13 June 2012 - 02:36 PM, said:

As to the stars that appear older than the universe, maybe they are... but, maybe there is an inherent error in our measuring system...

Mr. Right Wing, your information is about 9 years out of date and was never actually true anyway. Taun is not far off the mark.

This claim was always based on a poor understanding of the measurements. In any measurement there is a degree of uncertainty. Scientists will quote a figure plus or minus a certain amount. It just so happened that the upper end of the estimate for the age of some stars was greater than the lower estimate for the age of the universe.

Certain groups jumped on this and misrepresented it as a basic flaw in the big bang theory. This was never the case.

As more accurate measurements have been made the degree of uncertainty on both the age of the universe and the age of the stars has narrowed to the point that there is now no overlap in the age estimates. Since 2003 all the stars can be shown to be younger than the universe .

[coolguy]

what a great  find there could be an earth  planet  with  life

[27vet]

Can't wait for the JWST....

NASA said:

The James Webb Space Telescope (sometimes called JWST) is a large, infrared-optimized space telescope. The project is working to a 2018 launch date. Webb will find the first galaxies that formed in the early Universe, connecting the Big Bang to our own Milky Way Galaxy. Webb will peer through dusty clouds to see stars forming planetary systems, connecting the Milky Way to our own Solar System. Webb's instruments will be designed to work primarily in the infrared range of the electromagnetic spectrum, with some capability in the visible range.

Webb will have a large mirror, 6.5 meters (21.3 feet) in diameter and asunshield the size of a tennis court. Both the mirror and sunshade won't fit onto the rocket fully open, so both will fold up and open once Webb is in outer space. Webb will reside in an orbit about 1.5 million km (1 million miles) from the Earth.

Edited by 27vet, 14 June 2012 - 06:21 AM.

[psyche101]

Would it still presently exist?

[27vet]

psyche101, on 14 June 2012 - 06:29 AM, said:

Would it still presently exist?

Probably but it may have split or merged with another galaxy, many of the original stars would have died, new ones formed (see galaxy formation and evolution)

[Aerosol]

The article says: "The Japanese team calculates its galaxy was formed 12.91 billion light-years ago"
Now, how can something be formed a DISTANCE ago?
A common mistake :)

btw, I understand it's light takes 12.91 billion years to reach earth, so we are seeing how it looked like 12.91 billion years ago. Just pointing out they should have said something like "it is 12.91 billion light-years away, and therefore created at least 12.91 billion years ago."

And I mean the articicle on the homepage, not the one at the top of this topic :P
(http://www.time.com/...2117079,00.html)

Edited by Aerosol, 15 June 2012 - 12:22 PM.