Record-Breaking Galaxy Found In Deep Hubble Image 196
The Bad Astronomer writes "Astronomers using Hubble Space Telescope have found a galaxy at the very edge of the Universe: the light from this far-flung object has been traveling a whopping 13.1 billion years to get here! The galaxy appears as a non-descript dot in the infrared Hubble Ultra Deep Field taken using the Wide Field Camera 3, but a spectrum taken using a ground-based telescope confirms that we're seeing this object as it was a mere 600 million years after the Big Bang itself."
Re:Does it still exist? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Does it still exist? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Correct me if I'm wrong.. (Score:2, Informative)
Yes, there's a limit. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Big_Bang#Recombination:_ca_377.2C000_years
When the universe was still too hot for atoms to form, photons couldn't get too far before hitting a free electron. Then the universe cooled enough for recombination of hydrogen ions and electrons, making the universe 'clear'.
So we can only see back to 377000 years after the big bang, then it's lost in the background microwave radiation.
Re:Correct me if I'm wrong.. (Score:3, Informative)
the universe was opaque to radiation until 400,000 years after the Big Bang, that's the very last time most of the CMB photons interacted with matter.
Re:Does it still exist? (Score:5, Informative)
according to relativity, if we see it it exists.
Re:Correct me if I'm wrong.. (Score:3, Informative)
You can see radiation from the big bang, but you can't see the light. Ever. The big bang itself didn't make any light. Photons simply couldn't exist in those conditions.
Re:Does it still exist? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Does it still exist? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Does it still exist? (Score:4, Informative)
Considering the article estimates the bing bang to have happend around 13.7 billion years ago, I don't see how red dwarves can exist for over 100 billion years.
Observe a red dwarf over a period of years and estimate its current mass as well as its rate of mass depletion. Then do the math and calculate the amount of time it will take until its mass is such that it is no longer a red dwarf. Obviously someone has done this and come up with an estimated longevity of more than 100 billion years.
Re:How does this work? (Score:1, Informative)
The universe expansion is not a speed, but a speed per unit of distance. If two points are far enough, the space between them can expand faster than c. Hope this helps.
Re:Does it still exist? (Score:3, Informative)
No, the grandparent's point is that for all intents and purposes, we only experience something else as existing by signals exchanged at the speed of light (the basic point of special relativity). Whether or not an object exists "right now" is sorta a meaningless question to ask in the first place.
Re:Does it still exist? (Score:4, Informative)
You might be tickled to learn that there are some (wild-ish) theories that posit "every mathematical abstraction exists", as in, for every concept you can derive from mathematics, it actually exists "somewhere". Look at "mathematical multiverse" here http://space.mit.edu/home/tegmark/crazy.html [mit.edu] And Tegmark is not actually a crackpot, just fanciful. :)
Re:Does it still exist? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:And Why Isn't It Backlit? (Score:2, Informative)
Note that this glow isn't from the Big Bang itself. The universe was so hot (over a billion K) it wasn't transparent yet. There were no protons and neutrons, only a superheated quark soup. The signal WMAP captured was from about 400.000.000 years later: when the universe expanded and cooled enough to get transparent.
it is 40 billion light years from us (Score:1, Informative)
The light has traveled for 13.1 billion years while the universe has kept expanding. ....
The galaxy is now 3 times that distance from us.
sheesh call yourselves nerds
see ned wrights tutorial here:
http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/cosmolog.htm
Re:Does it still exist? (Score:3, Informative)
Except BizzyM is quoting Def Leppard's 'Rock of Ages' from their Pyromania album.
Re:Can a galaxy form in such a short period of tim (Score:3, Informative)
"At the edge of the universe" (Score:2, Informative)