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Space Science

Surprise Galaxies at the Edge of Observable Space 116

Posted by michael from the known-space dept.
brindafella writes "A scientist at the Australian National University's Mount Stromlo & Siding Springs Observatories, Dr Paul Francis, has dicovered a string of galaxies 300 light years long, and further out than they 'should' be. The team were refused time on a US telescope because many American astronomers believed the observations were technically impossible. The findings have been presented at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Atlanta. 'We have detected 37 galaxies and one quasar in the string, but it probably contains many thousands of galaxies.' He said the galaxy string lay 10,800 million light-years away. See the animation here."
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Surprise Galaxies at the Edge of Observable Space More

Surprise Galaxies at the Edge of Observable Space

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  • 300 light years? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Cujo ( 19106 ) * on Thursday January 08, 2004 @03:39PM (#7919805) Homepage Journal

    That can't be right.

    • Re:300 light years? (Score:5, Informative)

      by daeley ( 126313 ) * on Thursday January 08, 2004 @03:43PM (#7919881) Homepage
      Yeah, it's actually 300 million light-years long. :) Kids these days and their new math.
    • There was some editing of my entry by the /. team before it was accepted for public viewing. :-( Some other details were changed, too. My original posting quoted directly from the scientist's information. :-)
    • While the 300m to 300 conversion was obviously an editor error... What about the first article claiming that since the galaxies were 10.8 million light years away we were seeing them as they were 10.8 billion years ago.

      That's like saying "since you moved 100 metres in the last hour we'll conclude you're moving at the rate of 100 kilometers an hour". Is this an editing snafu on their part or am I missing something?
      • likely to be a typo. When the light arrives here, it has travelled 10.8 billion years, which is precisely the definition of a light year therefore we see what happened there 10.8 billion years ago.

  • Perhaps.. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Kiriwas ( 627289 )
    Perhaps our view of the Universe is not as complete as we thought. I hate to think of what things have been cast down as impossible to only later be shown as true. It's not as if these are amateur cosmologists, give them a break and a chance to be proven right or wrong.
    • It was an article on heresy or what we consider heresy in this age. Well these guys said something different from the accepted wisdom and were shunned.

      Good to see human kind have progressed so much since the days of Galileo. Kidding ofcourse. They did not have to wait centuries for people to stop trying to burn them at the cross.

    • No one worth his weight in popcorn would believe thta our view of the universe is complete. If anything, it is generally agreed that we're barely scratching the surface of the wonders and secrets that lie within.

    • eh, I prefer the egocentrical view that we are right and any contradictory statement is by default wrong... remember we are the center of the universe and the sun revolves around us.

      Now dont mind me as I take a stroll to the edge of the world.

  • NASA (Score:5, Informative)

    by daeley ( 126313 ) * on Thursday January 08, 2004 @03:41PM (#7919835) Homepage
    Much better luck loading with the story at NASA's site [nasa.gov], including an MPEG version of the animation.

    • Re:NASA (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Feztaa ( 633745 )
      Absolutely stunning.

      Those galaxies look so tiny, it's hard to imagine the scale involved.

  • Hooray for the status quo... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by addie ( 470476 ) on Thursday January 08, 2004 @03:42PM (#7919863)
    The team were refused time on a US telescope because many American astronomers believed the observations were technically impossible

    This is just sad. I sometimes think we'd be centuries ahead in science if theorists could lay aside their egos and realize that hardly any theory lasts forever in its entirety. Refusing time to a group of astronomers who think they may have found something new is not so different from burning heretics who claimed the world was a sphere.

    Maybe overdramatic, but my point stands.

    • Re: Hooray for the status quo... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Black Parrot ( 19622 ) on Thursday January 08, 2004 @03:47PM (#7919941)


      > > The team were refused time on a US telescope because many American astronomers believed the observations were technically impossible

      > Refusing time to a group of astronomers who think they may have found something new is not so different from burning heretics who claimed the world was a sphere.

      It's not like there are enough telescopes for everyone to get all the time they want. Sometimes a judgement call is required, and sometimes judgement calls are going to be wrong.

      It's not like these people have been labeled heretics and refused time on any telescope. Otherwise we wouldn't be hearing these results.

      • I've collaborated with Paul Francis myself in the past, and he's a good scientist. Good scientists get turned down for telescope all the time, for good projects -- there is a lot of competition. Those judgment calls are tough, and Paul and his collaborators may have failed to make a strong enough case to get high enough ranked against the competition, or he might have simply had the bad luck of having a too-skeptical reviewer on the panel. That happens, too. Depending on which telescope, the panel may h
    • There's a simple solution for that:

      money

      In science, we have to choose what research projects get funding. Someone is going to be rejected, we can't let everyone do what they want... unless we have a whole lot more funding.

      For example, if we had more telescopes, then people wouldn't have to argue over who gets to use them.

      In this case, the header was very misleading. They used the National Science Foundation's (a US government agency) Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile and were given fund
    • The team were refused time on a US telescope because many American astronomers believed the observations were technically impossible

      A very common occurance. See below.

      This is just sad. I sometimes think we'd be centuries ahead in science if theorists could lay aside their egos and realize that hardly any theory lasts forever in its entirety. ...

      Maybe overdramatic

      Way overdramatic, but the article sensationlistically led you on. For one thing, they were refused time on a particular U.S. telescope, n

    • I sometimes think we'd be centuries ahead in science if theorists could lay aside their egos and realize that hardly any theory lasts forever in its entirety.

      1) In what sense would we be "ahead" if the theories are always basically meaningless (we're going to replace them eventually anyway). 2) If every theory was taken seriously, there would be a lot of overhead added, so maybe we would not in fact be farther ahead (what evidence do you have other than your intuition?).

      Maybe overdramatic, but my po

    • I may be wrong... but believe the big bang did not actually happen. I say this because of something I've believed since I was younger, and which is constantly being proven by astronomers as they peer farther and farther out into what should be the "edge" of the universe... but they dont find it, so they extend the age of the universe to compensate.
      • The universe doesn't care what you believe! Seriously though, this isn't a valid argument. First, we certainly do butt up against an "edge in time" as we peer back -- the universe has certainly evolved, with things smaller, hotter, and closer together in the distant past. *That* is really the crux of the Big Bang. The actual value of the age isn't relevent to basics of the theory itself. Google up "Ned Wright cosmology tutorial" for an excellent set of pages and FAQs regarding common misconceptions.
    • That is NOT what was reported. They were actually refused time because the objects were too feint and they thought the observations weren't possible with their instruments.

  • Impossible (Score:3, Interesting)

    by samjam ( 256347 ) on Thursday January 08, 2004 @03:43PM (#7919876) Homepage Journal
    "The team were refused time on a US telescope because many American astronomers believed the observations were technically impossible."

    So thats the state of American science, only look at things that agree with current theory!

    I guess Galileo's ideas were impossible too, no need for the pope to take a look through the telescope cos he already KNOWS Galileo is making it all up.

    Bad science, but very quick science.

    Shame!

    Sam

    • Re:Impossible (Score:3, Insightful)

      by daeley ( 126313 ) *
      Erm, you do know that this research was funded by NASA too, right?

      Time is limited on the big 'scopes.
    • So I can say I have a radical new theory that the universe is made of cheese, and they are supposed to give me time?

      "So thats the state of American science"

      Why do you single out American science? I guess in other countries, people never get turned down for telescope time?
      • I know people don't normally read the article before posting, but you didn't even read the comments!

        I didn't single out American Science I commented on Italian Science too.

        I mentioned American Science because it was American Scientists who denied use of the telescope. The poitn was that they were turned down, but the reason.

        Seriously; I think you can see the difference between having a "theory" that the universe is made of cheese and observing something that looks like a galaxy in an unusual place and w
        • No, you used Italian Science as backup for your comment on American Science. But anyway:

          You said "the difference between having a "theory" that the universe is made of cheese and observing something that looks like a galaxy in an unusual place and wanted to use a better telescope to check it."

          There was no first telscope. It was all speculation. The article is a little ambiguous, it should say that they hadnt observed something that looks like a galaxy in the wrong place, in fact they hadnt observed

    • Re:Impossible (Score:3, Insightful)

      by TMB ( 70166 )
      You know, not reading the article is fine, but I'm not sure you even read the bit that you quoted.

      "The team were refused time on a US telescope because many American astronomers believed the observations were technically impossible."

      This has nothing to do with theory. It has to do with trying to take very deep spectra of a whole lot of very faint objects spread over a relatively large area of sky. It's really hard.

      [TMB]
      • Hmmm, does that mean they American astronomers thought the observed observations were technically impossible or that the planned observations were technically impossible.

        I thought the former, you make me think it might mean the latter, in which case: fair enough - it would be like some kid wanting to borrow my multi-meter to stick on the end of an antenna and measure signal strength.
        • Since not giving them telescope time had to happen before they'd actually done the observations, and therefore the TAC (Time Allocation Committee, that allocates the telescope time for a given telescope) doesn't know yet what the results are going to be, the decision had to be based on the planned observations. ;-) The Australian team didn't know when they planned the observations that they were going to find a structure bigger than predicted by CDM models.

          [TMB]
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • The rational US response... (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    ...would be to burn the heretic witches before they get another chance at those New South Wales and Chilean telescopes.

  • Learning to Say More Ofte (Score:3, Insightful)

    by leoaugust ( 665240 ) <leoaugust AT gmail DOT com> on Thursday January 08, 2004 @03:52PM (#7920026) Journal
    The team were refused time on a US telescope because many American astronomers believed the observations were technically impossible. The findings have been presented at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Atlanta, GA (America)

    Irony? Despite being refused, where do they present the results ...

  • I looked at the 8MB video, but could see no "string" of galaxies. It more looked like a cloud of galaxies. To me it seems like astronomers need some better definition of what is a string-like object.

  • Its Imposible... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Slick_Snake ( 693760 )
    It doesn't fit our Model!

    Well maybe the model is wrong.

  • ... and they were even denied the 'scope to perform the observations!? (yeah, like the "Kid, don't bother us with that Lun'ux on our NT Backoffice" crap I was given 3 years ago...)
    Ah, like all other human things, politics, jealousy and orthodoxy are science's greatest pain in the ass. It's a real shame that you have to wait for the white beards to retire or die before scrapping their pet theories or get out of the basement and have a real lab...
    Now, I wonder what kind of superforce, string, lace, lasso, wim

    • What makes you interpret this as a nail into the Big Bang's heart? There's nothing in the article that suggests that the Big Bang didn't happen. In fact it gives the known date of the Big Bang.

      The scientist comments -

      To explain our results the dark matter clouds that lie in strings must have formed galaxies, while the dark matter clouds elsewhere have not done so. We've no idea why this happened - it's not what the models predict

      Does that sound like a denial of the Big Bang?

      • It's just yet-another-inconsistency in the n-th hack to the BB theory introduced to clean up previous gripes. Undoubtedly some smart uberphysicist armed with pencil & paper (no lab mind you...) will find some toruous equation and shut up those not smart enough; it's been going on for decades. But, after all... do I care? Well, as long as they don't waste too much money chasing their glory I don't mind; I'm just worried that their sacerdotal attitude and pretence to know "God's mind" might dilute the dis

        • It's just yet-another-inconsistency in the n-th hack to the BB theory introduced to clean up previous gripes.

          Can you be more specific? What's the inconsistency here, with what is it inconsistent, and how does that inconsistency speak to the Big Bang model as a whole, specifically? I'm not saying you're wrong (yet); I just can't address your statement directly because it's too vague.

          There are without question unsolved problems in cosmology (thank heavens; otherwise, cosmologists would have little to

          • Well, the BB story has gone along for so much time... some new data whacks it, ok... small nudge and it's consistent. Some new research threatens boatloads of papers, ok... mop it under the rug. Average, uninitiated scientists can't make heads or tails of the nasty slew of hypotherical particles and their family relations (that HAS to be true because it fits the model!)... oh, they're just ignorant. Hmm, I've grocked EM and some quantum physics (the basics: Schroedinger, Fermi and the avg undergraduate stuf

            • Re: Yet another nail into Big Bang's heart... (Score:4, Insightful)

              by Bootsy Collins ( 549938 ) on Thursday January 08, 2004 @11:37PM (#7924722)

              Well, the BB story has gone along for so much time... some new data whacks it, ok... small nudge and it's consistent.

              Can you give an example?

              Some new research threatens boatloads of papers, ok... mop it under the rug.

              Can you give an example?

              Average, uninitiated scientists can't make heads or tails of the nasty slew of hypotherical particles and their family relations (that HAS to be true because it fits the model!)... oh, they're just ignorant.

              The Big Bang model makes no predictions whatsoever about the existence of any hypothetical particles, let alone a "nasty slew." The only particles required to be present for the Big Bang model to make accurate predictions are those expected to still be relativistic at the time of Big Bang Nucleosynthesis: namely, the three families of baryons and leptons that we've already detected in experiments here on Earth. In fact, when the BBN calculations were first done, it was discovered that the predictions only made sense if there were three or fewer families of fundamental particles. At that time, we only knew of two for sure. We've since discovered the third in particle accelerators, and measurements of the decay width of the Z0 particle 13 years ago confirmed that no more than three such families could exist. So, contrary to your statement, the Big Bang model not only doesn't predict a "nasty slew of hypothetical particles," but at this point it doesn't predict any hypothetical particles at all, and indeed sets a limit on how many light ones can exist.

              It looks to me like you don't know what the Big Bang model actually says. And it looks to me like you don't know what's not the Big Bang model -- that is, what are other ideas that are taken seriously as part of the standard cosmology but are not part of the Big Bang model itself because they deal with cosmological topics that the Big Bang model does not directly address.

              Hmm, I've grocked EM and some quantum physics (the basics: Schroedinger, Fermi and the avg undergraduate stuff in a Solid State Phy course) and never got the Alice in Wonderland feeling.

              Really? Wow. One of the reasons I loved quantum so much, through undergrad and grad school, was how something that seemed so "Alice in Wonderland"-y to me could be so solidly borne out by experiment. I mean, tunnelling through potential barriers? Come on. But amazingly enough, the answers come out right.

              You might argue that modern cosmology can account for all the data (or just give it enough time and it will) but anyone can shoehorn a dataset in a model... just add some epicycles, a nudge here, a constant there... it'll all fit.

              But can you give me some examples of how this has gone on, with respect to the Big Bang model?

              Our cosmological understanding has undergone a tremendous amount of change in the last 20-25 years, as cosmology has gone from a data-starved science to a data-rich one. Lots of ideas have been put forward, "tweaked" (as you say), shot down, resuscitated, etc. None of that has to do with the Big Bang model. People have definitely tried to massage pet theories when data has come in that didn't quite fit (the topological defect folks -- cosmic strings, etc. -- come to mind); but those theories were not the Big Bang model.

              It really seems to me like you don't know, of the set of ideas that make up the standard cosmology and those additional ideas that are taken seriously but not yet fully accepted, what's part of the Big Bang model and what isn't. The popular press carries some of the blame for this -- the phrase "the Big Bang model" is all the cosmology most newspaper science writers know, so when results have challenged cosmological orthodoxy, they've sometimes been described as challenges to the Big Bang model, even though in actuality they've typically said nothing whatsoever one way or the other about the Big Bang model.

              So, I just wished these guys p

              • > Well, the BB story has gone along for so much time... some new data whacks it, ok... small nudge and it's consistent.

                Can you give an example?

                *laugh* I'll bite :) Here are a few:

                * The "flat universe" case gives a Hubble constant of 65 km/s/Mpc (megaparsec). This amounts to an age of the universe of ~10 billion years. This is one of the "age paradoxes" that have led to some of the more interesting revisions and proposed revisions.

                * The temperature of the cosmic background radiation was a ret


                • First of all, thanks for coming in with some specifics. Not that I agree with them, but at least now there are things which are not vaguaries to which I can respond.

                  Unfortunately, responding adequately is going to take a lot of time and a lot of space. I don't know who's still reading this at this point, but I'm going to have to do this over several replies and over time. I hope that's OK.

                  The "flat universe" case gives a Hubble constant of 65 km/s/Mpc (megaparsec). This amounts to an age of the uni

                  • I can appreciate that that took a few-hour chunk out of the middle of the day; you've given me a few things to track down.

                    There is a most excellent paper by Xinhe Ming and Peng Wang from August 31, 2003 that led to the decelerated-then-accelerating model that has raised my eyebrows so much located here [arxiv.org].

                    The equations of state resemble (to me) the way computers use polynomials to approximate sines and other trigonometric functions (with less terms, mind you, but we already know the infinite polynomial se


                • OK, here's a batch more response. I hope this is interesting . . .

                  The temperature of the cosmic background radiation was a retrodiction, not a prediction. Alpher and Herman got the closest, with a prediction of 5 Kelvins, but what you don't often hear is that the prediction was later adjusted to 28 Kelvins.

                  This is pretty commonly brought up by proponents of alternative cosmologies. I've had discussions with proponents of several in the past, and this frequently gets mentioned. It's unfortunate, be

                  • No prediction of the cosmic microwave background's blackbody temperature prior to the CMBR's discovery was ever thought very likely correct

                    Predictions were made, though, from Steffan-Boltzmann laws, of blackbody cosmic background radiation in an infinite/static universe configuration by Guillaume in 1896 (5-6K), Eddington in 1926 (3.18K), Regener (2.8K) and Nernst (0.75K on a tired light model).

                    It is the mere existence of the microwave background -- its omnidirectional uniformity and amazing blackbod

  • What's the chance that space is warped in such a way that we're seeing something that's not as far away, kinda like the old Asteroids game where if you go off the screen on one side, you return from the other?
    • I think it's more likely that the universe wraps around, and we're actually looking at ourselves, only 300 million years ago...

  • Anyone in Atlanta or who knows these guys? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Bootsy Collins ( 549938 ) on Thursday January 08, 2004 @05:07PM (#7921149)

    The NASA page on this quotes a redshift of 2.38. Do they say how they got it? Did they take full spectra from all these objects? Are some of them Lyman break galaxies? Are any of the redshifts photometric rather than spectroscopic?

  • Blame it on the monkeys. (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I remember a story -- I think I read it on Slashdot -- about a group of scientists who did a study with a bunch of monkeys and typewriters. While they didn't produce anything intelligible, the possibility for them to do so was still there.

    Likewise, while there may be an infinite number of finite variables when dealing with the Big Bang, there are certainly an infinite number of possibilities. It's possible that this just happened to ... happen. (I feel like I'm repeating a lot of words here.) I could flip
  • I suspect that the area of space we know as "the universe" is just a bubble at the end of a branchand that somewhere out there is a dim speck of light that is another so-called universe.

    This trail of galaxies may be a path leading to our closest neighboring universe.
  • Why do we all think that we're looking back at the beginning of the Universe when we see these things? Sure, I'm no astronomer or cosmologist, but isn't this a panoramic view of floating-point calculation? Wave/particle theory? Will we ever actually 'see' the beginning of it all? What is all this Time nonsense? What if the Universe expands and collapses many times? Gosh, can't God create evolution AND be made up of our own collective extra-consiousnesses(sp?) anymore - geeze. Maybe that's the perpetual mo
    • Why do we all think that we're looking back at the beginning of the Universe when we see these things?

      You know when you see lightening and hear the thunder anywhere from a split second later up to a few seconds later? The farther away the lightning is the longer it takes the sound to reach you.

      If you built a microphone (telescope) to pick up thunder from 12 miles away you'd be hearing lightning from about a minute in the past.

      If you built a microphone (telescope) to pick up thunder from 6 million miles
      • Yeah - I dig the relativity of perspective, but that's my point - we'll never have every perspective - and whose to say that the Universe doesn't oscillate? Perhaps we're just looking at the most recent 'flip'. Just conjecture mixed with aesthetic stuff. I am thankful that you took the time to present your examples! S
        • You're welcome :)

          and whose to say that the Universe doesn't oscillate?

          That possibility is still definitely on the table, but it's losing support. A universe that slows, stops, and falls back in a "Big Crunch" is a negative curvature universe. A universe that expands infinitely is a positive curvature universe. Between them you have a precise zero-point, a "flat" zero curvature universe where the expansion rate slows infinitely close to zero.

          There are very strong theoretical reasons to think that the un

          • > and whose to say that the Universe doesn't oscillate?

            That possibility is still definitely on the table, but it's losing support.

            It has almost no support in the mainstream cosmological community, and hasn't for quite a while.

            A universe that slows, stops, and falls back in a "Big Crunch" is a negative curvature universe. A universe that expands infinitely is a positive curvature universe. Between them you have a precise zero-point, a "flat" zero curvature universe where the expansion rate sl

            • positively curved... negatively curved... that's backwards.

              Yep, I made a silly reversal. Spheres are positive, saddles are negative, and my brain wasn't paying attention to what I typed :)

              flat universes... (I think you were trying to say that

              Right. A limited amount of expansion, but taking forever to slow to a stop. Hmmm, now that I think about it that is a pain in the ass concept to communicate simply and clearly and exactly in "plain" non-math non-science english.

              Re: cosmological constant / vacuum
  • So a bunch of galaxies are in a line. We need to watch for a few billion years to see if they were formed in a line or randomly moved until they lined up. Sometimes my alphabits spell words when I'm eating breakfast, but when that happens I don't go looking on the box for some kind of word processing engine. I didn't see anything about whether coincidence was ruled out for this configuration.

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