Hum Posted January 27, 2011 Share Posted January 27, 2011 Somewhere out in the void ? 13.2 billion light years, give or take ? is a magnificent red blob, recently discovered by the Hubble Space Telescope. It's a galaxy ? or it was; it's long since flashed out of existence ? but far less beautiful or dramatic than nearly any galaxy the Hubble has spotted before. Its magnificence, instead, comes from its age. The newly discovered star cluster ? a hundred times smaller than our own Milky Way ? was formed just 480 million years after the 13.7 billion year-old universe itself was born, making it easily the oldest galaxy ever found. As such, it provides astronomers a first-time glimpse at the universe in its R&D phase, when small, sloppy galaxies were being formed out of hot gas, then vanishing shortly after ? leaving the skies free for the huge and mature galactic swirls that would come along later. Reported in this week's edition of Nature, the galaxy ? known, unpoetically, as UDFj-39546284. Ultra-deep infrared is exactly what would be needed to spot something like UDFj-39546284, but even then it took about 100 hours of observing time spread across the summers of 2009 and 2010 for the galaxy to be fully visually resolved. more Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BoredBozirini Posted January 27, 2011 Share Posted January 27, 2011 That is pretty impressive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Digitalx Posted January 27, 2011 Share Posted January 27, 2011 looks like it's shopped... just saying. some blurry zoomed in pixels got named as an official galaxy albeit named like it was a sony product. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
splur Posted January 27, 2011 Share Posted January 27, 2011 I wonder how they even know the age... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Teebor Posted January 27, 2011 Share Posted January 27, 2011 looks like it's shopped... just saying. some blurry zoomed in pixels got named as an official galaxy albeit named like it was a sony product. LOL? :blink: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zain Adeel Posted January 27, 2011 Share Posted January 27, 2011 age.. redshift. which tells the actual distance.. Things are gona speed up once we get the successor of Hubble out there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hum Posted January 27, 2011 Author Share Posted January 27, 2011 Probably the eye of Satan. :shiftyninja: :rofl: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mudslag Posted January 27, 2011 Share Posted January 27, 2011 Things are gona speed up once we get the successor of Hubble out there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unix2 Posted January 27, 2011 Share Posted January 27, 2011 Amazing, the future in space its really fascinating. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Growled Member Posted January 28, 2011 Member Share Posted January 28, 2011 That is seriously old and seriously far away. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Mirumir Subscriber¹ Posted January 28, 2011 Subscriber¹ Share Posted January 28, 2011 I wonder how they even know the age... They analyse the properties of light using special tools and methods :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghost5525 Posted January 28, 2011 Share Posted January 28, 2011 Wish we could get the James Webb up there... i can't wait to see what it can do Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hum Posted January 28, 2011 Author Share Posted January 28, 2011 That is seriously old and seriously far away. Those stars are probably disintegrated and long gone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unix2 Posted January 28, 2011 Share Posted January 28, 2011 Wish we could get the James Webb up there... i can't wait to see what it can do Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+M2Ys4U Subscriber¹ Posted January 29, 2011 Subscriber¹ Share Posted January 29, 2011 Those stars are probably disintegrated and long gone. And reformed into new stars and galaxies! Such is the cycle of matter in space :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farstrider Posted January 29, 2011 Share Posted January 29, 2011 And reformed into new stars and galaxies! Such is the cycle of matter in space :D Even the matter you are made of has origins in stars, we are made up of atoms that were created in stars over the past ages of the universe. And one day, the atoms we contain will most likely once again become parts of new stars. The current model holds that the first generation of stars made the lighter elements, and the heavier elements were made in later generations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PyX Posted February 1, 2011 Share Posted February 1, 2011 And reformed into new stars and galaxies! Such is the cycle of matter in space :D Or black holes ;) Well I did learn how to calculate the age of a galaxy in college, I?m pretty sure. I need to clean the dust on this book and read it all, it was really the most interesting class I?ve taken. I didn?t go there at university because unfortunately, from what I heard, it becomes so picky and precise that it?s boring. My class was really general and I loved it. Oh well, if I hate what I?m doing I know where I need to go ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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