Discovering Galaxies Near and Far

Anonymous Coward writes "Researchers using Japan's Subaru telescope in Hawaii have discovered a galaxy 12.9 billion light-years from Earth -- the most distant found to date. The latest finding extends the distance of the known farthest galaxies from Earth by about 3 million light-years." Toward the other end of the scale, JamesD_UK writes "Astronomers at the 2Mass project appear to have found the closest galaxy to the milky way yet, overtaking the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy. The galaxy is only 25,000 light years away and is being torn appart in a collision with the milky way. More information on the The Two Micron All Sky Survey is available here."

More to come

[Jump]

This is interesting, because the standard theory for cosmology predicts that galaxies like the Milky Way are build from merging small galaxies. However, only few remnants of this merger events have been found so far.

"Bad drivers"

[E1v!$]

I am NEVER going to let a gallaxy drive my car. 'seems they're always colliding.

"This is also an important discovery because it highlights that the Milky Way is not in its middle age - it is still forming."

Sarcasm: Gosh, and here I thought we only had 20 billion years before our migration. I can go back to sleep.

Opinion: It's a silly thought. Our gallaxy could be much older, in it's middle or late age and just have become 'the big boy on the block'. Drawing conclusions like that is highly spe

Re:"Bad drivers"

[jpop32]

Opinion: It's a silly thought. Our gallaxy could be much older, in it's middle or late age and just have become 'the big boy on the block'. Drawing conclusions like that is highly speculative, and not a good way to do science.

Yeah, E1v!$, you tell 'em like it is! Silly guys at the Royal Astronomical Society and dudes from Strasbourg Observatory in France obviously haven't got a clue, and engage in bad science. Surely the King of rock'n'roll knows better.

So, anyway, what's it like, up there, on Mars?

Re:"Bad drivers"

[E1v!$]

A little hard to breath but the view is nice.

As to the RSA and the SOF... Just a few years before a patent clerk warped the fabric of space time, a keynote speaker for the nobel prize said, "The future of the Nobel prize lies in the Nth decimal place."

Degrees are a way of limiting thought down 'known' constructive channels. I believe real progress comes from creative individuals. It is the learned, 'creative' scientist who has the greatest potential to examine a situation and derive a constructive poin

Go Milkyway go !

[clausiam]

Earthperson to alien from newly discovered close galaxy as it is being torn apart:
My galaxy is stronger than your galaxy - na-na-na-na-boo-boo

Subaru telescope

[pmz]

Finally, telescopes will make a name for themselves in the rally circuit.

How old is the universe supposed to be?

[SuuSt]

I can't remember the number. I'm just wondering because while the speed our two galaxies are traveling appart (us and the one that's 12.9 billion light years away) could be 2 times the speed of light - 1 it probably isn't. Either way if we can find the two most distant galaxies from each other (as far as we can see) and factor in their speed and acceleration we could say "The Universe is at least this old.

Just curious...

Re:How old is the universe supposed to be?

[oni]

scientists currently believe the universe to be around 14 billion years old. Things which are too far away for us to see, even if we had an infinitely powerful telescope, are said to lie beyond the light horizon.

As to your question about relative speed, remember that you will always measure the speed of light as 3 * 10^8 or 3E+8 meters per second no matter what. So, if a galaxy was heading away from me very quickly, and I could measure the speed of photons from stars in that galaxy as they passed by, I w

Re:How old is the universe supposed to be?

[SuuSt]

For what (little) it's worth my point was that two objects could travel away from each other with a relative speed of (2*C)-1 i.e. if they're both traveling near the speed of light, relative to each other they will be moving near twice the speed of light. Therefore if two objects were always moving at that speed (or at least since the begining of the universe) and are 14 billion light years apart, it must have taken slightly over 7 billion years for them to get to that location since the big bang requires

Re:How old is the universe supposed to be?

[Scott Carnahan]

For what (little) it's worth my point was that two objects could travel away from each other with a relative speed of (2*C)-1 i.e. if they're both traveling near the speed of light, relative to each other they will be moving near twice the speed of light.

Okay, but your point is wrong. Relative speeds do not add like real numbers. Rather, if you were to fix a frame and let two bodies move in opposite directions at speeds a and b (written as fractions of the speed of light in a vacuum, i.e. between 0 an

The View from Afar

[oni]

I wonder how many intelligent races in other galaxies have looked at our humble home and said "yep, there's a great example of a collision between a large galaxy and a small galaxy" I wonder how many times we've been featured on the cover of some alien's version of a popular astronomy magazine.

We'll never know of course but it's interesting to think about. Recently the Hubble Heritage project published a particularly good image of M104 [stsci.edu]. Take a look at that picture. You can't even see individual stars -