Hubble Discovers Birth of Galaxy 57
Joerg gave us the link-up to the latest NASA success. The Hubble Space Telescope has begun peering into the formation of a galaxy, with spectecular results. One of the questions they are currently trying to answer is whether the central bulge or stellar disk came first.
Which came first (Score:1)
Mrs Universe: "That's a mighty Central Bulge you got there."
Mr Universe: "Thanks! It's all due to my Stellar Disk!"
Mrs Universe: "oh my"
Puh-leease (Score:1)
Those are wonderful sentiments. They are only surpassed by the people who say we should give up NASA funding until we have fed all of the hungry people in the world.
There is only SO MUCH money to go around. Too much tax money is wasted on bureaucracy. Some is lost to out-and-out fraud. Big surprise -- all government agencies are guilty of it. The military has their $100 hammers. The human services departments have their welfare and foodstamp frauds. NASA loses a $1 million + satellite because they forget to convert metric to imperial units.
Whine about budget unfairness all you want, but the fact is that military spending has been severely cut over the last few years. Soldiers don't train like they used to. Planes don't fly as much as they used to. Disgruntled pilots are choosing not to re-enlist. At the same time, U.S. forces are being deployed more on missions of questionable national interest. How much more do you want?
I know it's fashionable in an intellectual forum such as slashdot to whine about spending on tanks and bombers. I'm sorry to inform you, though, that there are still countries which would like to harm the United States. National defense is still a necessity -- like it or not.
Furthermore, for better or worse, the rest of the world has come to depend on U.S. military force every time a new mini-Hitler comes to power and threatens world peace. Personally, I have lost patience with the "enlightened" countries who snicker at the U.S. "wild west/Rambo" mentality, but come begging for help at every threat. Maybe if they picked up the bill for their own defense, we COULD get by with a reduced naitonal security budget.
I see no loss of interest in space exploration, only a more careful, deliberate approach. At this point, we're asking, "So what do we do now?" Everything outside of our little blue rock looks pretty inhospitable. Asking why we don't go to the moon anymore is a little like asking why no one visits that pile of gravel in the vacant lot out back. Sadly, Mars doesn't look much better. The really interesting stuff in space seems to be way out there and it will take a while to get there. Sorry, we just had the misfortune to be born in a rather boring period of mankind's quest to leave earth.
So what? (Score:2)
Story with Pictures as well (Score:4)
I found this on the nasa homepage:
Pr-Photos page [stsci.edu]
I hope you understand that was funny (nt) (Score:1)
Re:Woe is Humanity (Score:1)
"Yes, I do think we should give money to NASA while people are starving somewhere."
It's a way of distorting the truth to make it impossible to take other positions. Like "so what you are saying is that we should kill babies"
Some people are just idiots. If you want to take that position, fine. Just don't distort the truth.
a bumpersticker, no? (nt) (Score:1)
I doubt that's possible (Score:1)
Re:Interstellar dust? (Score:1)
C'mon! (Score:1)
Besides, it complements the article on the nanotech guitar nicely. :)
Re:central bugle vs. outer regions? what gives? (Score:1)
In this case, no disk, no bulge. There'd be nothing to bulge =from=. Likewise, no bulge, no disk. Actually, in this case, it's possible to imagine a disk without the bulge (they're called "Ring Galaxies"), so that's not entirely accurate, but it's close enough.
Re:Woe is Humanity (Score:2)
I agree. If the Royal advisors said to Columbus "but there are starving people in Africa", I guess America would be 'discovered' later so that the American Indians wouldn't have been shuffled into reservations so quickly. (I am kidding, don't flame me)
Seriously:
--------------
Face it, in no time period will you find people that AREN'T poor, in the past, present or ever in the future. Communism tried to make one class, it always ended in one poor class with a few filthy rich politicians, and a destroyed economy. The hugest fraction of poverty and starvation is due to corruption, mismanagement, greed, etc. Granted, famines do occur due to climate and weather, but this earth is very capable of feeeding its inhabitants. Even if enough money was sent to Chad or where else, it will simply be wasted even worse than the US government wastes its own money. We shouldn't use our money in a futile attempt to feed countries that simply refuse to function properly.
Theories of flavor revised due to Hubble discovery (Score:3)
"This is a real breakthrough in snackonomy," said Gerald Swoboda, senior astronomer at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "Not only that, but it solves the burning issue: what did Mike Nelson eat during all those years on the Satellite of Love? If Bugles form naturally in outer space, we can only dream of what else may discovered."
In his 1975 book "The Artificial Flavor of the Universe," science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke forsaw this very event. "While there may be diamonds falling to the core of the outer gas giants of our solar system, imagine wholesome, filling showers of Ho-Hos or Ding Dongs. These delicous, tempting snack cakes are formed under much the same conditions as outer space diamonds."
Until this day, we didn't know just how right Clarke was.
NASA is planning on launching a deep space probe to the nearby Magellenic Cluster to find out if it too is packed full of nutty goodness and giant interstellar squirrels that all-too-cleverly steal mankind's galactic breakfast cereal.
Re:I know! (Score:1)
Interstellar dust? (Score:1)
What ever happened to the red shift? I thought distant stellar objects appeared redder because they were speeding away from us at a speed siginificantly near the speed of light. What gives?
Re:Puh-leease (Score:1)
Mil-Spec'ing things can be a bitch, cost-wise, but that's another topic entirely. Rest assured that this, at least, isn't a case of gov't fraud.
Re:Woe is Humanity (Score:2)
It's the jackasses bitching about "wasting money in space while millions starve on Earth" that stop the space program, not government. As if there were some clearing house you could go to to trade a Titan-IV booster and feed Chad.
But hey, at least they're being politically correct.
Re:Hubble find new galaxy (Score:1)
Re:Woe is Humanity (Score:1)
Ex. How many people thought when they found the Titanic (for real) that it had already been discovered a few years before in that show "Raising the Titanic"?
Basically the general public (at least the soon to be voting public) , IMO, is thinking "Has'nt that already been done/discovered?" They are not real concerned with "IF we can make it to Mars" but "When". Because they've seen it hundreds of times at the movies.
But then again, I could be totally wrong.
Bigger mirror needed (Score:1)
Bah, forget HTTP mirrors. Gimme a parabolic mirror about 10 meters wide, and I won't need the stinking web site...
---
Re:Mirror needed - Here's the Full Text: (Score:1)
Donald Savage
Headquarters, Washington, DC Oct. 6, 1999
(Phone: 202/358-1547)
Nancy Neal
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
(Phone: 301/286-0039)
Ray Villard
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD
(Phone: 410/338-4514)
RELEASE: 99-107
STARRY BULGES YIELD SECRETS TO GALAXY GROWTH
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope is uncovering important new
clues to a galaxy's birth and growth by peering into its heart --
a bulge of millions of stars that resemble a bulbous center yolk
in the middle of a disk of egg white.
Hubble astronomers are trying to solve the mystery of which
came first: the stellar disk or the central bulge?
Two complementary surveys by independent teams of astronomers
using Hubble show that the hubs of some galaxies formed early in
the Universe, while others formed more slowly, across a long
stretch of time.
Hubble confirms that the evolutionary paths of bulges and
disks are connected. The central bulge stabilizes a galaxy's
development and largely controls the ebb and flow of star birth in
the core. The central bulge holds secrets as to how and when a
galaxy formed. Before Hubble, astronomers had detailed
information only about the complex core of our galaxy, which has a
small bulge peppered with massive young star clusters and a
telltale bar structure funneling gas to the center. Hubble allows
astronomers to see bright star clusters, bars and other structures
deep inside the bulges of other galaxies.
A group led by Reynier Peletier from the University of
Nottingham, in the United Kingdom, has confirmed that the central
bulges of more tightly wound spirals were all created at more or
less the same time in the early universe.
A second team, led by C. Marcella Carollo of Columbia
University in New York, surveyed galaxies that have small bulges
and bar-like structures that bisect the nucleus like the slash
across a no-smoking sign. They found that the bulges in these
galaxies grew more recently, through markedly different processes
happening within the galaxy's disk.
Both surveys used Hubble's precise resolution to peer into
bulbous hubs of more than 200 neighboring galaxies, out to a
distance of 100 million light-years. Using Hubble's visible-light
and infrared cameras to penetrate deep into the cores of the
galaxies, astronomers were able to untangle the stars' true colors
-- a measure of age -- from their apparent colors, which are made
redder by interstellar dust.
Peletier's team used Hubble to look into the center of 20
spiral galaxies that have large bulges. The team found that
elliptical bulges of stars formed over a relatively brief period
very early in the young universe. This could have happened
through the collapse of a single cloud of hydrogen or merger of
primeval star clusters.
"Apparently everywhere in the universe these intermediate-
sized galaxies must have started forming early on," reports
Peletier in a paper to be published in the Monthly Notices of the
Royal Astronomical Society. "The bulges of early spiral galaxies
are old, and at least the outer parts of their disks are
considerably younger."
Carollo's team found that in a different class of spiral
galaxy, a small bulge probably formed early on, but was later fed
by gas flowing into the galaxy's core, likely along a bar-like
structure caused by instabilities in the surrounding disk of
stars. The gas fueled the birth of new stars, and the bulge
inflated like a beach ball as brilliant star clusters populated
the center.
Carollo's results, to be published in the Astrophysical
Journal, show young and old stars in the bulge. The researchers
say that these types of bulges can continue to grow in galaxies in
the present universe, but it is unlikely that they will ever
become as big as those giant bulges that formed when the universe
was young.
The Space Telescope Science Institute is operated by the
Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc. for
NASA, under contract with NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center,
Greenbelt, MD. The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of
international cooperation between NASA and the European Space
Agency.
- end -
NOTE TO EDITORS: Image files are available on the Internet at:
http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/latest.html and
http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pr/1999/34/pr-ph
But if you had never BUILT the booster..... (Score:1)
Looking back in time (Score:1)
For a while now when they pointed telescopes at the very farthest edges they've been able to see very young galaxies, peppered with quasars ("White Holes", "Superstars" whatever you want to call them). It's really quite amazing that we have a telescope powerful enough to look that far to see the very creation of galaxies. Maybe soon enough we'll have an even bigger telescope up there and we'll be able to see all the way to the Big Bang.
Mirror needed (Score:1)
Official web site with pictures (Score:3)
In general, you can get the best scoop from the Lastest Hubble News [stsci.edu] page.
Central bugle? (Score:2)
Re:Central Bugle (Score:1)
I think we need to learn to respect the universe's privacy. All these scientists poking and prodding, trying to figure out how old it is, how fast it's expanding -- how embarrassing! You hear consumer advocates screaming about the latest computer chip ID, but nobody cares about galaxies. If I were that galaxy, I'd be mortified. Imagine your parents showing everybody your naked baby pictures. And now they're debating about mysterious disks and bulges. How would you feel if it were you being scoped by the Hubble all day? Outrageous.
When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained...Re:Looking back in time (Score:1)
Re:I doubt that's possible (Score:1)
Drat! (Score:1)
Well that did not take long too die. Slashdotted in record time for a gov. site! Can't wait to see some pictures though.
For those w/o FTP access. Your welcome. (Score:4)
Headquarters, Washington, DC Oct. 6, 1999
(Phone: 202/358-1547)
Nancy Neal
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
(Phone: 301/286-0039)
Ray Villard
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD
(Phone: 410/338-4514)
RELEASE: 99-107
STARRY BULGES YIELD SECRETS TO GALAXY GROWTH
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope is uncovering important new
clues to a galaxy's birth and growth by peering into its heart --
a bulge of millions of stars that resemble a bulbous center yolk
in the middle of a disk of egg white.
Hubble astronomers are trying to solve the mystery of which
came first: the stellar disk or the central bulge?
Two complementary surveys by independent teams of astronomers
using Hubble show that the hubs of some galaxies formed early in
the Universe, while others formed more slowly, across a long
stretch of time.
Hubble confirms that the evolutionary paths of bulges and
disks are connected. The central bulge stabilizes a galaxy's
development and largely controls the ebb and flow of star birth in
the core. The central bulge holds secrets as to how and when a
galaxy formed. Before Hubble, astronomers had detailed
information only about the complex core of our galaxy, which has a
small bulge peppered with massive young star clusters and a
telltale bar structure funneling gas to the center. Hubble allows
astronomers to see bright star clusters, bars and other structures
deep inside the bulges of other galaxies.
A group led by Reynier Peletier from the University of
Nottingham, in the United Kingdom, has confirmed that the central
bulges of more tightly wound spirals were all created at more or
less the same time in the early universe.
A second team, led by C. Marcella Carollo of Columbia
University in New York, surveyed galaxies that have small bulges
and bar-like structures that bisect the nucleus like the slash
across a no-smoking sign. They found that the bulges in these
galaxies grew more recently, through markedly different processes
happening within the galaxy's disk.
Both surveys used Hubble's precise resolution to peer into
bulbous hubs of more than 200 neighboring galaxies, out to a
distance of 100 million light-years. Using Hubble's visible-light
and infrared cameras to penetrate deep into the cores of the
galaxies, astronomers were able to untangle the stars' true colors
-- a measure of age -- from their apparent colors, which are made
redder by interstellar dust.
Peletier's team used Hubble to look into the center of 20
spiral galaxies that have large bulges. The team found that
elliptical bulges of stars formed over a relatively brief period
very early in the young universe. This could have happened
through the collapse of a single cloud of hydrogen or merger of
primeval star clusters.
"Apparently everywhere in the universe these intermediate-
sized galaxies must have started forming early on," reports
Peletier in a paper to be published in the Monthly Notices of the
Royal Astronomical Society. "The bulges of early spiral galaxies
are old, and at least the outer parts of their disks are
considerably younger."
Carollo's team found that in a different class of spiral
galaxy, a small bulge probably formed early on, but was later fed
by gas flowing into the galaxy's core, likely along a bar-like
structure caused by instabilities in the surrounding disk of
stars. The gas fueled the birth of new stars, and the bulge
inflated like a beach ball as brilliant star clusters populated
the center.
Carollo's results, to be published in the Astrophysical
Journal, show young and old stars in the bulge. The researchers
say that these types of bulges can continue to grow in galaxies in
the present universe, but it is unlikely that they will ever
become as big as those giant bulges that formed when the universe
was young.
The Space Telescope Science Institute is operated by the
Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc. for
NASA, under contract with NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center,
Greenbelt, MD. The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of
international cooperation between NASA and the European Space
Agency.
- end -
NOTE TO EDITORS: Image files are available on the Internet at:
http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/latest.html and
http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pr/1999/34/pr-ph
Pretty (Score:1)
CNN story from yesterday (Score:1)
http://www.cnn.com/TECH/space/9910/06/hubble.pi
Central Bugle (Score:2)
the announcement of the stellar disk's birth.
The Chicken and The Egg. (Score:1)
stellar disk or the central bulge," of course the first thing that came to mind was the chicken or
the egg question.
But no. They even make references to the galaxy as an egg.
a bulge of millions of stars that resemble a bulbous center yolk in the middle of a disk of egg white.
I'm starting to wonder if that was just an innocent commment or a subtle NASA geek joke.
Whatever. Laugh. It's funny.
kaniff -- Ralph Hart Jr
children's song (Score:1)
That could be the new version of the children's song, though.
I can just see little kids walking around...
"Which came first, the central bulge or the stellar disk?"
Re:children's song (Score:1)
Sorry, typo.
/. vs. Washington (was Re:Woe is Humanity) (Score:1)
While I think some of AngryMob's post may have been a bit over-dramatic, one of his suggestions really leaps out: The idea of allowing /. users to contact their legislators about issues important to the community.
This seems like it would be a perfect fit for the Your Rights Online section, and one that I'd definitely find useful.
Some quick ideas for what it might include:
What do you think? Any other ideas from anyone out there?
Re:Hubble find new galaxy (Score:1)
central bugle vs. outer regions? what gives? (Score:1)
Re:Woe is Humanity (Score:1)
As far as the uselessness of anniversaries, I'd agree, in most cases. The 50th anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor is a meaningless event and probably doesn't deserve celebration. But my point was, given the tendency to celebrate meaningless anniversaries, what do we gather from the fact that the moon landing - certainly a landmark event in human history - doesn't get any notice? I'd say this is more than an indication the space program has dropped out of public interest.
As to CNN airing shuttle launches, that's a load of crap - the fact that they do doesn't indicate at all that there's public interest in space. And my point is -precisely- that there's only scientific interest these days. There's no longer the romanticism there was when Kennedy was around.
The fact that you remember the moon landing? Irrelevant. I don't mean LITERALLY remember - i mean spce no longer figures in the public consciousness. They don't care about it. It's like the Carter Presidency: sure, you remember what it was like, but you don't really care about it anymore.
And no, you dweeb, I don't mean a suggestion box. I mean an actual lobbying force. Everyone else has a congressional lobby - Christian fundamentalists, gun manufacturers, orange farmers, you name it. Why not geeks? I'd consider their viewpoints for the most part far more rational than others, and certainly a lot of what they feel doesn't get represented adequately. It's easy enough to naysay it into nothingness, but i'd consider this sort of pessimism extremely misplaced. If you try it and it succeeds, you have a powerful tool to project your viewpoint. If it fails, you have some congressional mailboxes filled with spam. Which might succeed in getting that anti-spam legislation through. We can't lose.
SA
Woe is Humanity (Score:3)
Re:Woe is Humanity (Score:1)
Personally, I'm sick of all these anniversaries for this and for that. Does it really matter that we put on a big show? Would it make you feel better if a bunch of morning news shows put on a slew of feel-good segments just because something happened some arbitrary number of years ago?
It's funny that you mention Star Trek and its popularity. There have been quite a number of very popular and very successful scifi shows lately, some pretty soap opera-esque, some not. We've had Star Trek: TNG, Voyager, DS9, Babylon 5, Stargate just to name a few.
CNN still airs every shuttle launch we have. We still have quite a public interest in space. We live in a different society than that from the Cold War, and as such, that interest takes on a different form. It's much more scientific, not patriotic.
And flamebait aside, talking about your 'Geek Lobby' has to be one of the most braindead things I've heard in a long time. You want
Please, I'm trying to eat my lunch here.
-Dan
Red shift (Score:1)
Sorry to do this but... (Score:1)
BTW - Here's a puzzle for you, find the Debian program in the above paragraph!
NASA success (Score:1)
Re:Interstellar dust? (Score:1)
Tricky thing #3174 in astronomy is figuring out which of many possible causes is actually redening the light.
Callum
Hubble find new galaxy (Score:1)