Record-Breaking Galaxy Cluster Found 246
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by
Soulskill
from the deeper-field dept.
from the deeper-field dept.
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."
How is this distance measured? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Fascinating! (Score:3, Interesting)
But there’s more. Because clusters are so big and bright, they can be seen really far away. In space, distance means time; the farther away we see an object, the younger the Universe was when the light left that object. In the case of this newly found cluster, the light we see left it 9.6 billion years ago — making it 400 million light years farther away than the next-most distant cluster ever seen. The Universe itself is only 13.7 billion years old, so we’re seeing this structure as it was not too long after it formed.
Re:Really Star-tling ... navel gazing on Earth (Score:3, Interesting)
Well problem 1 with that is the fact that the Earth is only 4.5 billion years old, and thus looking at a galaxy that is 9.6 billion years ago we can't see anything that would have formed in the last 4.5 bilion years.
Problem 2 is that you are proposing that the universe (in this case space) is finite, but has no boundries... and wraps around on itself. While you are not the first to propose this theory, to the best of my knowledge we currently have no evidence that this may be the case, nor any mathmatical model on why it should be the case.
Re:Fascinating! (Score:5, Interesting)
Current models suggest that the initial inflationary period of the univerise after the big bang was well in excess of the speed of light. WAY in excess actually.
Yes, this implies that there may be galaxies further away than we can see, outside of our horizon of cause or effect. Heady stuff.
Re:Hubble UDF (Score:3, Interesting)
AFAIK, the HUDF does not image any clusters. If it does, your PhD may be ready...
-l
Putting it in Star Trek terms... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Fascinating! (Score:3, Interesting)
I know that current models show that the brief moments after the BB (relatively speaking), that they had the universe expanding at FTL speeds. But I never understood how on the one hand, Physicists says that nothing can go FTL, and then say the first bit of time after the BB, things were going FTL.
However, there is an interesting theory [fsteiger.com] that suggests that the speed of light is not a constant at all, but has been slowly degrading over the years.
Which actually fits the BB model much better than those who claim C being a constant, except for in the moments after the BB.
The problem with that hypothesis is that it breaks all sorts of things we used to rely upon as being sure. And Scientists are like most people, they don't like big changes.
Re:Fascinating! (Score:3, Interesting)
It implies they're made of the stuff that moved faster than the light did, and what's in our universe is the stuff that didn't.
Which implies that our universe is made of stuff that can be moved by entrainment with the passage of the stuff that moved faster than light.
More fundamentally, it implies that what we think of as "universe" is "that which is made of the stuff that moves at or slower than the speed of light".
Which at this point includes the dark matter, which is dark because it's made of stuff that doesn't interact with light at all, i.e., it's not made of subatomic particles that react to the electromagnetic force.
In other words, any "galaxy" outside our "universe" isn't just so far away we can't see it, it's likely made of stuff that doesn't radiate anything we can see (at any spectrum, from low-frequency radio to gamma rays and above; as these are all electromagnetic and thus photonic in basis).
Re:Ob (Score:5, Interesting)
I've always been fascinated by the notion that the parsec is somehow a more universal measurement than the light-year.
Both are based on Earth's orbit, after all.
The light year uses the period.
The parsec uses the diameter, coupled with the purely arbitrary base 60 conventions of the ancient Babylonians .