London - (AP) - An international group of researchers has identified 27 pre-galactic fragments, dubbed "teenager galaxies," which they hope will help astronomers understand how our own Milky Way reached adulthood, have been discovered by aiming two of the world's most powerful telescopes at a single patch of sky for nearly 100 hours.

The ultra-long exposure technique allowed scientists to see back 11 billion years or more, to 2 billion years after the Big Bang, when galaxies were still forming.

Some fragments discovered were so young they might more appropriately be called "baby galaxies."

Researchers were able to identify the fragments from the weak light they emitted. Analysis of the light pointed to low star formation rates and low levels of chemical enrichment, suggesting the objects were at an early stage of formation.

Larger, brighter galactic fragments had been spotted before and that they would go on to form much larger galaxies than the Milky Way. The adolescents identified, in contrast, would later grow into galaxies much like the one we inhabit.
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wouldn't that toss the expanding big bang theory right out the window, the farther you look out, the older that very light will actually be, for instance the light we are seeing is very old from very far away. so if there was a big bang, where did it start, close to us or far from us. say we are able to look from the farthest point out and that much farther, would we start to see even younger images lol. they should monitor that point for x million light years and get back to us for their results. not only that, wouldn't there be a huge dust cloud or empty space where it started?

On the contrary, this supports the big bang. The fact that the distant galaxies look young is proof that the light is old. Think about what would happen if the light from your parents left 20 years ago, you would be seeing as they were in the past, i.e. younger.



This is not easy to understand but all points in the universe are equally distant from where the big bang occurred. Think of a child's balloon when it is not inflated. Imagine the surface of that balloon is covered in spots. Now imagine the balloon is inflated. All the dots rush away from each other... space is expanding. They are also all rushing away from the centre of the balloon (in this analogy this is the point where the big bang happened). All the dots are equally distant from that origin and that point is not anywhere on the balloon. It's exactly the same thing with the universe except that it is a 3 dimensional object expanding into a fourth dimension where as the balllon is two dimensional expanding into a third.


Because the universe is expanding slower than the speed of light it is impossible to look that far back. Even if you could look that far back there would be nothing to see. Everything in the universe was created at the moment of the big bang: matter, light space and time. Without them there is nothing to see.

Wow.. Go WASPIE! that sure cleared things up.

Waspie...
I have found that the expanding dough ball example works best as an example of the expanding Universe. Imagine for a moment there is a freshly made ball of dough sitting in a bowl on the table. Mixed within the dough are bits of walnuts. As the dough expands (rises) the ball gets larger and the bits of walnuts move further away from each other. The dough is space and the bits of walnuts are the galaxies. Do you see how this works as a better example?

Owlscrying and others...
Imagine for a moment you could magically and instantaneously be transported to an Earth-like planet in the midst of those "teenager galaxies." You would not find yourself among those very young galaxies but rather more "mature" galaxies like the Milky Way. If you were able to look back upon the Milky Way and Andromeda you would see "teenager" galaxies like those described in the article. Also, if you looked in the direction opposite of the Milky Way and Andromeda the galaxies you viewed would progressively appear younger the further out you look.

Why does this happen? Because there is a set speed limit for light. As we are sitting in our homes or traveling about our communities the things we observe with our eyes seem to be happening instantly due to our being close to the event. As distance from our eyes to the event increases the time delay between the event happening and the event actually occurring increases. That solar flare scientists observed happened eight minutes ago, that radio message from the Mars rover was transmitted three minutes ago... even though we are only receiving the information now. So, when astronomers peer at those teen-aged galaxies they are seeing them as they were 11 billion years ago and not as they are presently.

the main problem is your perception of space and time, if there is such a thing. isn't space infinite, meaning it goes in all and every direction forever. never starting and never ending, space. i can say you really can not say just how big it is, or small for that matter. so yes, if there was a big bang and it is expanding, we can't say that it won't return inward or if there are multiple big bangs all over the universe, this would work for all dimensions as well. as far as you can see, there is farther with binoculars then farther with a telescope, a bigger telescope then hubble, what's next... the deep field few shows thousands of galaxies per square inch and we still don't know what's beyond that. young or not, the very first material that burst out would be the oldest, the material closest to the center is the youngest. no matter what light they are measuring, distant light can not be old light, we are viewing the distant light in an earlier form because it is so far away and a lot older than we see it.