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Space Science

Hubble Looks Deep in the Past 13

Posted by michael from the long-ago-in-a-galaxy-far-far-away dept.
edo-01 writes: "The article says it best: "In the most distant observations yet by the Hubble Space Telescope, some astronomers think they are seeing evidence that the universe emerged from its initial darkness in a dawn of light that came up like thunder across the cosmos" Here is the press release, and here is an artist's rendition of what the vast stellar nurseries might have looked like. I must say I thought at first it was an actual image of the creation and almost swallowed my tongue..."
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Hubble Looks Deep in the Past More

Hubble Looks Deep in the Past

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  • wow (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Bouillabaisse ( 548348 )
    man, that artist's rendition is just unbelievable. i've seen some pretty darn good graphics done, but that is just awesome. it really captures the feel of what it might look like. makes you wonder how he thought of this, or what we actually know what it looks like. Were does all these ideas come from?
  • We already know the moon landings were faked, but you didn't bother telling us. At least you told us that these pictures were faked.

  • Old Light (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Euphonious Coward ( 189818 )
    Every photon arriving at Hubble from so far off has been coursing across the universe for billions of years, and passing through billions of light-years of stuff.

    Is there any reason to think those photons have not been changed by the experience? Might not many or most of the phenomena we attribute to "the early universe" be simple artifacts of the unimaginably long path the light took getting to us?

    The reasonable baseline hypothesis (absent religious bias) is that the universe far away and long ago should be much like the universe nearby, today. Claims that it was fundamentally different should be treated as extraordinary, requiring extraordinary evidence. Such claims deserve special attention to processes that may produce artifacts.

    • Re:Old Light (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Barryo_Stereo ( 546123 )
      You say "Claims that it was fundamentally different should be treated as extraordinary, requiring extraordinary evidence." That's quite an extraordinary, all inclusive claim! Do you have any extraordinary evidence for that statement that extraordinary evidence is required? This debating point is discussed by Alvaro Caso on p. 37 of the Jan/Feb 2002 Skeptical Inquirer.
      Getting back to the science, why do you believe that the long light path would change the nature of the light? ( Ignoring Doppler shifts, reddening by scattering, etc. )
      Barry

    • > Might not many or most of the phenomena we attribute to "the early universe" be simple artifacts of the unimaginably long path the light took getting to us?

      IANAFundie, but for some reason I never liked the big bang theory anyway. Unfortunately the BBT has a nasty habit of making predictions that turn out right, so I have reluctantly signed on and moved my "tired light" conjectures to the realm of alternative universe phantasies.

  • Lanzetta concludes that 90 percent of the light from the early universe is missing in the Hubble deep fields. "The previous census of the deep fields missed most of the ultraviolet light in the universe; most of it is invisible," he says.

    I can't remember EVER seeing any UV light. Is it me that's clueless, or do they need some more star-savvy writers in their PR dept?

    • So science thought it was being short-changed in the mass dept. so they invented "dark matter" (whohohoho *ominous sounding!*); how long will it be before they give a name to this light they think the universe is holding-back ?

      And when they do give it a name, will it do something even better than "break damage limit" when I put it on my sword ?

      graspee

  • why? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Transcendent ( 204992 )
    why can't they just release the actual picture? is it a secret or something?

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