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L. Calcada / ESO
An artist's impression shows the young galaxy UDFy-38135539 gathering up the hydrogen and helium gas surrounding it and forming many young stars. Astronomers have determined that UDFy-38135539 is the most distant known galaxy.
Astronomers have confirmed that an incredibly faint galaxy in the constellation Fornax is the most distant known object in the universe, shining more than 13 billion light-years away and reflecting an era when stars were just beginning to emerge from a cosmic fog.
The galaxy, known as UDFy-38135539, is one of several super-distant objects picked out from the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, the most sensitive snapshot ever taken of deep space. In time, astronomers may well spot objects that are even farther away, but this particular galaxy was the first of its type to go through the arduous process of having its measurements checked.
In fact, the astronomers behind the observations say they couldn't have seen UDFy-38135539 unless there were other, fainter galaxies nearby to help clear out the space around it. "Without this additional help, the light from the galaxy, no matter how brilliant, would have been trapped in the surrounding hydrogen fog, and we would not have been able to detect it," Durham University's Mark Swinbank said in a news release from the European Southern Observatory.
The ESO researchers, led by Matt Lehnert of the Observatoire de Paris, published their findings in this week's issue of the journal Nature. Those findings shed unprecedented light (so to speak) on a mysterious period in the development of the universe, about 600 million years after its big-bang origin, when the radiation of the first stars began clearing out the neutral hydrogen that filled the infant universe. That process, known as reionization, transformed the cosmos from an opaque haze to the mostly empty space we know today.
"Measuring the redshift of the most distant galaxy so far is very exciting in itself, but the astrophysical implications of this detection are even more important," Nicole Nesvadba of France's Institute d'Astrophysique Spatiale said. "This is the first time we know for sure that we are looking at one of the galaxies that cleared out the fog which had filled the very early universe."
Further observations are likely to flesh out the scientific story of how the universe emerged from its dark ages.
G. Illingworth / UCO-Lick and UCSC / NASA / ESA / HUDF09
The Hubble Ultra Deep Field shows several candidates for breaking observational distance records, but confirming those distances is difficult. The inset picture highlights the galaxy UDFy-38135539, which is the farthest observed object to have its distance confirmed.
How the measurement was done
The story of UDFy-38135539 begins with last year's release of the latest Hubble Ultra Deep Field imagery, captured using the Hubble Space Telescope's brand-new Wide Field Camera 3. Astronomers checked the spectral signatures of thousands of faint objects in the picture, looking for the telltale signs of extreme redshift -- that is, a shift in the spectrum that is linked to how far away an object is in our expanding universe.
The ESO astronomers found several galaxies that had their light shifted so far to the red side of the spectrum that they knew those galaxies had to be incredibly distant. Numerically speaking, their redshift had to be greater than 8. But how much greater?
To figure out the precise redshift number, the astronomers booked 16 hours of time on the ESO's Very Large Telescope in Chile, which is equipped with an ultra-sensitive infrared spectroscopic instrument called SINFONI. After weeks of data analysis, the team ran the numbers and came up with a redshift of 8.55. That meant the galaxy was farther away than the most distant previously known galaxy (redshift 6.96) as well as the most distant previously known object (a gamma-ray burst at redshift 8.2).
That redshift means the light left the galaxy when the 600-million-year-old universe was in its era of reionization. But based on the models for the development of galaxies, UDFy-38135539 would not have had enough power at that time to clear out enough empty space for the light to shine through as it did. That's why scientists suspect that other, undetected galaxies were helping to clear out the bubble of space.
In a Nature commentary, Michele Trenti, an astronomer at the University of Colorado's Center for Astrophysics and Space Astronomy, hailed the results as "a fundamental leap forward in observational cosmology." He noted that there was "robust statistical confidence" that the team's interpretation was correct, with only a 0.1 percent chance that the interpretation of the galaxy's spectrum was incorrect.
Trenti said the study "opens up exciting proects for spectroscopy of high-redshift objects" -- not only using the data currently at hand, but also drawing upon future studies to be conducted by Hubble and its successor, the James Webb Space Telescope, as well as the European Extremely Large Telescope.
Q&A with the research team's leader
The leader of the research team, Matt Lehnert of the Observatoire de Paris, answered a couple of my follow-up questions in an e-mail exchange:
Cosmic Log: Could you explain why this observation is so difficult? Of course the faintness of the galaxy is one of the big issues, but I understand that the high redshift is another big issue.
Matt Lehnert: You are correct, it is not only the faintness. It becomes increasingly difficult because the night sky becomes brighter (which causes more background noise), contains a plethora of emission lines caused mainly by OH molecules in the upper atmosphere of the earth, and light is increasingly absorbed due to many molecules and other complex interactions. We cannot overcome all of these problems. Light lost is light lost. Having a very efficient spectrograph helps.
SINFONI is certainly that. Perhaps the best currently available. You also have to have good data reduction software. It's not very romantic, but removing those night sky lines is tricky -- they are strong, much, much stronger than the signal, and they vary with time. Because they are bright, they add lots of noise, but much of that "additional" noise is due to improper removal. My colleague, Nicole Nesvadba, has literally developed an excellent set of tools for extracting the most out of these data.
Q: Could you please also talk about the significance of the conclusions you reached on the galaxy's place in the epoch of reionization. I understand that the luminosity from the galaxy alone wouldn't have been enough to allow the redshifted photons to escape, and that the assumption is that there were surrounding smaller galaxies that aided in "carving" out a suitable bubble of ionized hydrogen gas. Does this fit with the existing models for galaxy formation during that epoch, or does it rule out any models that theorists have come up with? What do scientists hope to gain by learning more about the reionization epoch?
A: Well ... I always believe that models should be tested with results! Astronomy is still an empirical science and so much of what we model is based on observational results.
The underlying physics is very complicated. For example, we really do not have a robust picture of how individual stars form. As you might imagine, since galaxies are made up of stars, and are to some extent defined by these stars, it is difficult to understand how galaxies form without this essential understanding of how stars form. Having said all of that, our current models do in fact predict that reionization was mostly due to numerous faint objects and that the first places to be reionized were the ones that had higher densities of objects. Was it a surprise for me? Yes. Was it a surprise for all astronomers? No way!
What we hope to learn is, what types of galaxies were really responsible and in fact, were only galaxies responsible? There are other ideas, mini-quasars -- small black holes that accrete matter and contribute, to decaying particles, to several other [ideas that have been] at least proposed if not all that plausible.
We would like to know how reionization proceeded. Was it in fits and starts? Did it start in regions of the highest densities and then proceed to the lowest? How long did it take? How did this gas cool to form the first galaxies, and how did galaxy formation change because the universe was reionized?
These first galaxies literally changed the state of the universe. It was most neutral -- composed mainly of hydrogen and helium atoms -- to mostly ionized between galaxies -- composed mostly of protons, electrons, and helium nuclei (although helium re-ionization came later at lower redshifts).
It is a great challenge to understand how did these humble galaxies, humble because they are small, low-mass galaxies, change the state of the universe? It's an exciting puzzle and a challenge to our understanding of physics.
Correction for 11 p.m. ET: I originally wrote that the galaxy was seen as it was 600,000 years after the big bang, but the figure is actually 600 million years. Sorry for putting the decimal point in the wrong place, and thanks to those who pointed out the error.
In addition to Lehnert, Nesvadba and Swinbank, the authors of "Spectroscopic Confirmation of a Galaxy at Redshift z=8.6" include Jean-Gabriel Cuby, Simon Morris, Benjamin Clement, C.J. Evans, M.N. Bremer and Stephane Basa.
Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page or following @b0yle on Twitter. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," Alan's book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
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Fox news is run by republicans. So they are limited to how far they can think. The little town I was born and raised goes far beyond 6000 years in history.
Well that's all cool & all. Yet a sizable asteroid flying nearby tends to not be noticed til it flies between our planet & the Moon. Shortly thereafter followed my a nervous message of it having been a close call, & how scientists can't watch all of the universe for any potential threats.
Of course. They're too busy watching something waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay over there while not minding the equivalent of a 2-ton semi about to hit here! And then there's a continual unawareness of what's in the oceans as compared to what's in space...
You do understand it's a whole lot easier to watch or see something that's a thousand or more light years across than a hundred feet or less, right? You also understand that asteroids don't emit light (as an entire galaxy does) they reflect it. Which means if it's reflecting light from the sun we have to be at the correct angle to witness it.
"A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away..." It's a sad commentary on the U.S. at large, that such an amazing discovery cannot be discussed without politcizing or theologizing the event. To those who believe in God I say don't worry about everyone else, the Almighty with handle it. You're just annoying folks needlessly. To those of you spout about politics and evolution I ask, if evolution works, how come there's so many of you stupid people?
Because stupid people breed faster.
all the praises to the God the mighty creater of universe. it is a amazing discovery but there are many more galaxies behind that one even. as the power of men will grow, he will be granted more wisedom and more knowlodge will be revealed. it's ajust a begining.
So sayeth another Christian. How do you know what is back there if you have not been there? If your mighty creator is talking to you, then your dentist played a joke on you and planted a speaker in your bicuspids, you water rat.
hey msnbc! you might want to try spell check because the headline on your home page says 'astromer'. i may not be the brightest person out there but come on, isn't it your job to know how to spell?
mrbuescher....
What if there are terrorists in that galaxy that hate earthlings. Wouldn't you ant to know? Suicide bombers could be here in as little as 13 billion light years. It's yet another thing we have to worry about.
Who really gives a flying F what is 13B light years away? I know to many i'm sounding like a ignorant red-neck who lives in Nevada, but really, what is there to be gained by this discovery? I know, i know, it's too complex for me to understand. I'm going back out to the barn to swat flys now. Adios, space cowboys!
If we turned Hubble 90 degrees to the left, any idea what we would see...then another 90 degrees until we made a complet circle. Then do it again this time go 90 degrees up until you completed another circle. With that information and the technology we have, would it be possible to see if the universe is expanding in some areas and collapsing in other areas. 13 billion light years...and we think we are alone? Something is wrong with this picture, way to fuzzy for me.
Galaxies would not be colliding if everything was expanding. Yet they are doing it all the time.
Everything is expanding, but some things are moving at a faster rate than others. If you can't get out of the way of a galaxy that is moving faster than you, you will collide.
Robert, the mainstream view is that someone looking around from that galaxy 13.1 billion years ago would have spotted some of the surrounding galaxies, but might also have noted a faint cosmic fog very far out. They might have thought the universe was surrounded by a "wall" of hydrogen gas. But today, that area would look very much like our region of the universe. Some theorists do think, however, that there could be local variations in the expansion of the universe ... that's very speculative at this point.
I think the big bang theory is wrong. What is it expanding into? If it is just space expanding what is beyond this space?
More than a dozen years ago, we had a little story that tried to answer that question... "what's the universe expanding into?" Here it is:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3077398/
In M-Theory, we would be expanding across the surface of a brane, a construct of the 11th dimension.
If this is the picture of what this galaxy looked like 13 Billion light years ago, then that same galaxy has had 13 billion years to change. So in essence, we don't have a clue as to what that same galaxy looks like today nor will we for another 13 billion light years as long as we are stationary to it or going slower than the speed of light from it or it from us. The light of that galaxy must be coming towards us to be able to see it today. If it was traveling away from us, we would never know it was there. That may be the dark matter and dark energy that we know to be throughout the universe and why it has mass. Just energy we can't see because it is going away from us. The light we see has mass, so from the perspective of those from whom the light is going away, there is the same mass they can't see and probably call it dark matter or dark energy.
The Galaxy in the picture just might be ours, only 13 billion years ago and with the light trying to catch up to us. The picture taken by Hubble will stay the same if we are traveling away from that point at the speed of light. If our galaxy stopped dead in its tracks (not moving any more from its origin), then every light year for the next 13 billion light years, we would be able to take a picture of space in the direction we were traveling from (behind us) to see a MRI slice of how our Galaxy was originally formed to how it evolved and ended up where we are today as the light caught up to us.
Wow, that's really interesting and shows a complete lack of knowledge of physics. Ignorance certainly must be bliss...
Jamie - unless you can make a 180 on your anger you may come to understand more of Karma then you ever believed existed. Until then I hope you never have an opportunity to teach in a classroom.
DelFairChild - you keep working your ideas. I hope to read more of your kind of attempts to reason from what you currently know and adding your kind of imagination.
The Archie Bunker theory on how the Universe came into being: In the beginning there, all of yer space, yer time, and yer matter was confined to a pernt there that was much smaller than yer quark. Then some wise guy wemt and lit hisself up one of them cigarettes and you got yerself wha'cha might call yer BIG bang.
I don't know anything about red shift or any other color shift, but I was just thinking... just because this object is 13 billion light years from us doesn't necessarily mean it was around 600 thousand years after the big bang. We need to know its location relative to us and to the big bang point (or "center" of the universe). If we are on opposite sides of center, and thus moving away from each other, this object may be much younger than 13 billion years. Theoretically, wouldn't the diameter of the universe stretch for 26 billion light years (13 billion in each direction from center)? I'm sure the scientists have this all figured out, so I'm not going to worry about it. I'm sure we're giving God a chuckle.
Again, the Big Bang did not happen at a point in space, because there was no space before it. It was an explosion OF space. Stop making this harder than it already is.
I am with bflumox on this one. It is a fair question. If asking that next question makes it harder than it already is - so be it. A reasonable explanation is sought.
The universe is described as expanding in all directions...but from where exactly?
Even if big bang describes an explosive expansion of the early pre-universe why would there not be a center area of space that these many observable galaxies are racing away from? Can various observed values of red shift in all directions be used to triangulate the area of space where big bang would have started from?
I fixed the reference to 600,000 years to read 600 million years, for what it's worth. See the link in the comment just above for more on the "where's it expanding from" question.
Thanks for the article Alan, as well as your responses. It's so fascinating to speculate about the origins of the universe and "reality" as we know it. Those with a truly open mind will always tend to gravitate (no pun intended) to the most logical path of ideas and theories. To patently state that the universe is only 6000 years old, as stated in the bible, does not take the path of the most logical evidence we have available.
But at the same time, we really know next to nothing about the universe and reality. We're one step up from the primates, we've only just started using our brain, with thoughts of "self-awareness" and questioning the true nature of things.
Here's a quick visualization to make my point. Imagine looking at a small pond, about half the size of a football field. And imagine that pond is our total current knowledge of the universe. And then picture the Pacific Ocean as representing the TOTAL amount of absolute knowledge there is to know about the universe and reality, that has yet to be discovered or understood.
That is how far, IMHO, we have to go to understanding everything, including the concept of God itself.
There are some really intelligent people here. Anyway I totally agree but to really put it into vie, imagine the pond as a rain drop insted and then you've only gotten a little bit closer. The universe is ever expanding and so keeps changing and growing. To be honest we don't even know if the big bang was just a small explosion in an even bigger area of space and if what we detect to be our universe is in fact the area of which that explosion has reached.
I'm gonna lose it. I'm not going to say this again... IT WAS NOT AN EXPLOSION IN SPACE......IT WAS AN EXPLOSION OF SPACE!!!!!! I've gotta find some people that can at least try to comprehend this. Jackwagons...
Jamie - take some meds and explain your position.
Spacey - It depends on what your definition of "space" is.
Scientific definition is an emptiness or void. Therefore you have to have SOMETHING there to explode in the first place. A void by definition cannot explode.
There appears to be a typo in the article, which states that the universe was 600,000 years old at the time the light was emitted. That number was stated in the video to be 600,000,000 (600 million) years old which makes more sense as the age of the Universe exceeds 13 Billion years.
Yes, that's a typo. Sorry about that.
I don't know anything about this...but one night looking at the stars i thought...relative to earth...which way do they think the big bang came from.....the north heading south....the west heading east...which way do they point their telescopes looking for the beginning of time???? just a thought....
Big Bang came from everywhere. There wasn't anything before it, so it couldn't come from a direction. There was no NSEW, that came after.
I believe just as the people of our history thought that our planet was flat (they were so positive that it was flat, they would call you crazy if you dared to argue) when the actuality was that they had limited knowledge of how our planet worked. So today we believe that we know about outer space, all of this is interesting but maybe we will be overwhelmed with new knowledge once we go through a new renaissance period. I really do not think we have a firm grip on the facts of outer space.
You are more than right. I believe it is impossible ( and this is the only time I justify using the word impossible) to understand the univers or even beyond until we'vr finished working out all the problems on our planet.
It seems that only JAMIE SPACEMAN has a firm grip on the facts of outer space. The rest of us can only guess at what really happened before, during and after the "Big Bang".
BTW, there are some new interesting theories coming out (in the past couple of years) about the Big Bang, some of them talk about a cycle of "Big Bangs", repeating over vast amounts of time.
My advice: read everything you can, take theories in from all sides and don't discount ANYTHING.
Clues often come from the most unlikeliest of places.
The real question is, due to the whole distance and speed of light thing, I hope people understand that that is the galaxy 13.1 billion years ago and that know, at the time we are in, The galaxy may have created much more. In fact it may have already developed life more intelligent that human beings, or the galaxy may already be going through it's dying stages, by collapsing on itself forming a superdense centre. Just remember that this is the image of the galaxy 13.1 billion years ago and not the image of the galaxy now. (And I know about the whole relativity of space-time, I'm just trying to explain without going into to much detail)
The Big Bang was not an explosion in space, it was an explosion OF space. Just think, there is light travelling towards us right now that hasn't reached us yet, and because of the increasing speed of the expansion of the universe, may NEVER reach us. Therefore, the analogy of the bubble as explained by the poster before, doesn't mean we are at the edge of the bubble looking toward the center (where they say the BB took place), but the bubble is as far as we can see into spasce. There are other things in the universe we will never see.
jamie
The shape of the universe and as a consequence the predictable behavior of light at vast distances is still under investigation. There are several ideas but there is no widely accepted theory. It is good to thoughtfully explore what should and should not happen within each of the options being investigated and I would encourage anyone to do so but you seem to have made up your mind about all of this. Science has not.
I got into astronomy a few years back, got myself a really cool Celestron telescope, turned it skyward and looked around for a few nights, checked out the Moon, Mars etc. but got bored with that pretty quick. Too many un-answerable questions in the world of astronomy, makes my brain hurt to think about that. I needed to answer for myself questions like "what does my neighbors wifes tits look like?" and "who is that dumping trash on my property" things like that. My own little universe is just fine for me thank you.
I did the same thing. Spent a small fortune, then got bored. I think I expected to see space chaos, galaxies crashing into each other, etc. Nothing, a very bright moon and a couple of planets.
Her tits are all natural and I was really drunk when I dumped that garbage.
How can you see the end of space? What is beyond that, a brick wall? More nothing? Nothing is more space, and space is more room for stuff. Just because the closet is empty doesn't mean the closet itself doesn't exist.
. see that period , it all start when a spec like that exploded ... ya thats it
so whats at the end of the universe? a giant sheet of glass ? Or some kind of cliff? It doesn't take a scientist to say there is no end .
Then what is there if you break the glass and jump off the cliff??
Your mom is there, waxing poles...
Finally, a place we can start sending illegals and they won't come back. Thank you Universe.
In the text of this article it is suggested that the light started out from this galaxy when the universe was 600,000 years old yet the video states that the universe was 600,000,000 years old - which is it?
The Large Hadron Collider is in search of what is coined the God particle. Why is it never suggested that various observed values of red shift in all directions can be used to triangulate the area of space where big bang would have all begun? The God point if you will.
If you think this is far away, try 13Trillion: 13,000,000,000,000! that's the debt! here we are talking 13,000,000,000! thats 13,000,000,000,000-13,000,000,000 = 12,987,000,000,000 dollars if we were to relate national debt to light years in space! if you think 13B light years is a long way, just wait to you try to pay off the debt under obama and pelosi and Reed! never will happen. They have successfully destroyed this economy for many lifetimes. think about it, a light year is the time, time it takes for light to travel in one year at 186,000 miles per SECOND!!!!!! per second!!!!!
Think of it as time. 1 MILLION seconds is 11 days..........1 BILLION seconds is 33 years...........1 TRILLION seconds is 33,000 YEARS.
lol, who cares? we spend more air conditioning tents in afghanistan than we do on NASA. http://www.theworld.org/2010/07/28/military-base-close-to-the-front/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Budget#Annual_budget.2C_1958-2010