Record-Breaking Galaxy Cluster Found 246
The Bad Astronomer writes "Astronomers are reporting that they have detected the most distant cluster of galaxies ever seen: a mind-smashing 9.6 billion light years away, 400 million light years more distant than the previous record holder. The cluster, handily named SXDF-XCLJ0218-0510, was seen in infrared images by the giant Subaru telescope, and confirmed with spectroscopy and the X-ray detection of million-degree gas (a smoking gun of clusters). Every time astronomers push back the record for clusters, they learn more about the early conditions of the universe, so this cluster will provide insight into how the universe itself changed over the first few billion years after the Big Bang."
Fascinating! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Fascinating! (Score:4, Funny)
Ob (Score:1, Funny)
How many parsecs is that? Er, wait ... [head asplode]
it IS mind-smashing (Score:5, Funny)
i tried to consider what 9.6 billion light years was like in terms of distance. i mean, really, really tried to get a mental grasp on that scale of size
and i couldn't do it, and now there's a trickle of blood leading out of my nose
thanks a lot, slashdot
i'll just go back to the simply mind-bending effort of trying to imagine the amount of indexed pages in google in terms of library of congress units
Re:Which begs the question: (Score:5, Funny)
Clusters? (Score:4, Funny)
That's a coincidence... (Score:2, Funny)
The aliens that inhabit SXDF-XCLJ0218-0510 recently discovered the Milky Way, and decided to call it SXDF-XCLJ0218-0510. This is going to get confusing.
My mind was smashed as soon as I read (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Clusters? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Fascinating! (Score:3, Funny)
The Universe itself is only 13.7 billion years old
and yet we still are looking for the expiration date..
Re:That's a coincidence... (Score:4, Funny)
luckily they called it SXDF-XCLJ0218-0510 in their own, alien, langugage, which means that when we first encounter them, we'll just pick something that sounds vaguely, but not really all that close, to what they're saying.
Like, say, Peking.
The whole thing is a lie from the Devil anyway. (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Putting it in Star Trek terms... (Score:1, Funny)
If I did my maths right (and that's always doubtful), it's 3.14(+/-) million years away at warp 9.9.
You might want to pack some extra snacks for that trip.
If it's 3.1415 million year away, would that make it a round trip?