Astronomers find farthest galaxy: 13.1 billion light-years

[webfact]

Astronomers find farthest galaxy: 13.1 billion light-years
By SETH BORENSTEIN

WASHINGTON (AP) — Astronomers have discovered a baby blue galaxy that is farther away in distance and time than any galaxy ever seen. It's among the universe's first generation of galaxies, from 13.1 billion years ago.

Yale and University of California Santa Cruz scientists used three different telescopes to spot and then calculate the age of the blurry infant galaxy. By measuring how the light has shifted, they determined the galaxy, called EGS-zs8-1, is from about 670 million years after the Big Bang.

Because when astronomers look farther away from Earth, they are looking back further in time, this is both the most distant galaxy and the furthest back in time. It's 13.1 billion light-years away, in the constellation Bootes. A light-year is 5.8 trillion miles.

This beats the old record by about 30 million years, which isn't much, but was difficult to achieve, said astronomer Garth Illingworth of the University of California Santa Cruz, who co-authored the paper in Astrophysical Journal Letters announcing the discovery.

The photo they took was from a crucial time in the early universe, after what was called the Dark Ages, when galaxies and stars were just starting to form and the universe was only one five hundredth the mass it is now, Illingworth said.

This galaxy — larger than most of the others from that time, which is why astronomers using the most powerful telescopes can see it now — was probably only about 100 million years old, but it was quite busy, Illingworth said.

"We're looking here at an infant that's growing at a great rate," he said. The galaxy was giving birth to stars at 80 times the rate our Milky Way does now. "These objects would like nothing like our sun. It would look much, much bluer."

Yale astronomer Pascal Oesch was looking through Hubble Space Telescope images in 2013 when he saw a bright object. He then used the Spitzer space telescope to see it again. The hardest work was confirming the age and distance using the ground-based Keck Observatory in Hawaii to separate light waves.
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Hubble: http://hubblesite.org/


-- (c) Associated Press 2015-05-06

[Chicog]

But that simply can't be true, because God tells us so.

[Seastallion]

5.8 trillion x 13.1 billion.

That's a lot of miles. More than I could walk in a day, or even a year.

Hard to truly comprehend how minuscule we are.

[jamesjohnsonthird]

Our fastest rocketship could get us to our nearest star in 50,000 years or so.

[thaibeachlovers]

But that simply can't be true, because God tells us so.

So what do you think was there before the big bang? I'm not saying it was an old man with a beard, but if you go back far enough there must have been a beginning, or did all the components of the universe just happen to be lying around, and there will be big bangs for ever and ever and ever?

I don't know if it was God or not, but neither does anyone else.

[ezzra]

Ok, and what is their visa arrangements are? are they as convoluted and complicated as here in Thailand?

[soalbundy]

But that simply can't be true, because God tells us so.

God said nothing of the sort but some religious nut tried to work out how old the earth was from ''facts in the bible''

[Chicog]

But that simply can't be true, because God tells us so.

So what do you think was there before the big bang? I'm not saying it was an old man with a beard, but if you go back far enough there must have been a beginning, or did all the components of the universe just happen to be lying around, and there will be big bangs for ever and ever and ever?

I don't know if it was God or not, but neither does anyone else.

No, No, you misunderstand.

Edited May 6, 2015 by Chicog

[Thakkar]

I bet there's a 7/11 there. There's gotta be, right?

T

[soalbundy]

Maybe just a reflection off of the microwave oven

[Scott]

Ok, and what is their visa arrangements are? are they as convoluted and complicated as here in Thailand?

I'd be sure to get a return ticket, just to be sure.

[jamesjohnsonthird]

Ok, and what is their visa arrangements are? are they as convoluted and complicated as here in Thailand?

I'd be sure to get a return ticket, just to be sure.

All tourists from the Milky Way get 15 thousand millennia VISA exemption on arrival.

Edited May 6, 2015 by jamesjohnsonthird

[Scott]

Ok, and what is their visa arrangements are? are they as convoluted and complicated as here in Thailand?

I'd be sure to get a return ticket, just to be sure.

All tourists from the Milky Way get 15 thousand millennia VISA exemption on arrival.

Ya, but by the time you get there, they may have changed the visa requirements and then your screwed!

[soalbundy]

Ok, and what is their visa arrangements are? are they as convoluted and complicated as here in Thailand?

I'd be sure to get a return ticket, just to be sure.

All tourists from the Milky Way get 15 thousand millennia VISA exemption on arrival.

Ya, but by the time you get there, they may have changed the visa requirements and then your screwed!

I'm sure they aren't Thai

[anon4546543]

I love science, especially biology. The sad thing about astronomy is that every thing is so far away, so far beyond our ability to comprehend and interact. But this is one more nail into the coffins of creationist "dreamtime" theory. If most creation believers could discard such things as virgin births, some creature called the Holy Ghost that impregnates young virgins, a triple godhead that copies the ancient Greek beliefs of the time, then maybe their beliefs as in goodwill to all could be accepted.

[jobsworth]

But that simply can't be true, because God tells us so.

So what do you think was there before the big bang? I'm not saying it was an old man with a beard, but if you go back far enough there must have been a beginning, or did all the components of the universe just happen to be lying around, and there will be big bangs for ever and ever and ever?

I don't know if it was God or not, but neither does anyone else.

It is not possible to talk about before the big bang since space and time were created at the big bang. God is the filler that we use for the parts that we do not understand. Our god is mostly a christian concept which has held back human development for 1000 years from 600 AD to 1600 AD. Without a Christian god we would now be colonising the galaxy. That is not to say that god does not exist only that he is greatly over-rated. Cynical Christians will reply that those who do not believe in God have never loved anybody. The latest theory is that big bangs are happening all the time like big plates clashing together. The physics of these other universes may be completely different to our own. This so called reality that we all experience is not real at all but an illusion or Maya in the Buddhist faith. i believe in the holographic nature of our experience. There is no matter. There are no particles. There are only waves or vibrations in a firmament. This is difficult to prove since we cannot stand outside of it and look at it from the outside. The Victorians had the idea that something came out from the eye which caused light to be emitted to the eye. There must be an observer for anything to happen. This idea is now being looked at again in the light of the double slit experiment and certain brain experiments. We are what we are and we alone are responsible for our present situation. It is interesting that where we live is a very special place, very supportive to life and where we are shielded from many destructive forces like radiation. As a great supporter of SETI it must be stated that by the Drake equation states empirically that the number of planets with intelligent life equals the number of years that intelligent life can survive after the discovery of the atomic bomb. In our case that is 70 so far.

[timmyp]

I bet there's a 7/11 there. There's gotta be, right?

T

7/11 is thrilled to know large the universe is, because this means more opportunities to open more franchises.

[Oziex1]

But that simply can't be true, because God tells us so.

So what do you think was there before the big bang? I'm not saying it was an old man with a beard, but if you go back far enough there must have been a beginning, or did all the components of the universe just happen to be lying around, and there will be big bangs for ever and ever and ever?

I don't know if it was God or not, but neither does anyone else.

It is not possible to talk about before the big bang since space and time were created at the big bang. God is the filler that we use for the parts that we do not understand. Our god is mostly a christian concept which has held back human development for 1000 years from 600 AD to 1600 AD. Without a Christian god we would now be colonising the galaxy. That is not to say that god does not exist only that he is greatly over-rated. Cynical Christians will reply that those who do not believe in God have never loved anybody. The latest theory is that big bangs are happening all the time like big plates clashing together. The physics of these other universes may be completely different to our own. This so called reality that we all experience is not real at all but an illusion or Maya in the Buddhist faith. i believe in the holographic nature of our experience. There is no matter. There are no particles. There are only waves or vibrations in a firmament. This is difficult to prove since we cannot stand outside of it and look at it from the outside. The Victorians had the idea that something came out from the eye which caused light to be emitted to the eye. There must be an observer for anything to happen. This idea is now being looked at again in the light of the double slit experiment and certain brain experiments. We are what we are and we alone are responsible for our present situation. It is interesting that where we live is a very special place, very supportive to life and where we are shielded from many destructive forces like radiation. As a great supporter of SETI it must be stated that by the Drake equation states empirically that the number of planets with intelligent life equals the number of years that intelligent life can survive after the discovery of the atomic bomb. In our case that is 70 so far.

Thanks Mr Spock, very enlightening.

[ikbenhet]

Ok, and what is their visa arrangements are? are they as convoluted and complicated as here in Thailand?

I'd be sure to get a return ticket, just to be sure.

You forget the cash requirement of 20.000 cubits.

Also a photo of you in front of your home planet is needed to complete the visa request.

[JetsetBkk]

But that simply can't be true, because God tells us so.

So what do you think was there before the big bang? I'm not saying it was an old man with a beard, but if you go back far enough there must have been a beginning, or did all the components of the universe just happen to be lying around, and there will be big bangs for ever and ever and ever?

I don't know if it was God or not, but neither does anyone else.

It is not possible to talk about before the big bang since space and time were created at the big bang. God is the filler that we use

<snip>

Include me out of that "we".

[Gweiloman]

Ok, and what is their visa arrangements are? are they as convoluted and complicated as here in Thailand?

I'd be sure to get a return ticket, just to be sure.

You forget the cash requirement of 20.000 cubits.

Also a photo of you in front of your home planet is needed to complete the visa request.

Apart from the photo, don't forget a copy of google map as well

[TPI]

And now to top it off it looks like they've invented a Warp drive.....and an Em drive that doesn't use fuel and could take us to Mars in 22 days! The mind boggles!

[Eneukman]

A slight inaccuracy in the report when it says that the newly discovered galaxy is 13.1 billion light years away. That is wrong as it is the light from the galaxy that has taken 13.1 billion years to reach us. When the light we're seeing now was emitted, the galaxy was much closer but because of inflation in the first fractions of a second after the Big Bang, it is now considerably further away. Cosmologists now reckon that the visible Universe currently has a diameter of some 98 billion light years. Ming boggling distances.

Alan

[WitawatWatawit]

I'm not going until they clean up the taxi scams at the airport. And install western toilets.

[Muhendis]

Our fastest rocketship could get us to our nearest star in 50,000 years or so.

You need to build your "fastest rocketship" a bit better I think. Our nearest star is only 93 million miles away...........

[Zyxel]

It is estimated that the entire universe is about 158 billions light years wide, expending faster that the speed of light.

[hawker9000]

But that simply can't be true, because God tells us so.

So what do you think was there before the big bang? I'm not saying it was an old man with a beard, but if you go back far enough there must have been a beginning, or did all the components of the universe just happen to be lying around, and there will be big bangs for ever and ever and ever?

I don't know if it was God or not, but neither does anyone else.

You have to learn to ignore the free shot artists. Cheap thrills I guess.

Fascinating stuff, the idea that what you're seeing actually took place over 13 billion years ago. And whatever's going on in that place now, assuming that galaxy even still exists, you won't be able to see or know for 13 billion more years (with some give or take for galactic movement). And you're quite right, even as science approaches the point of being able to see something that happened nearly as far back as the Big Bang itself, there's still the question of what happened before that, and what "before that" even means since time itself, prior to the Big Bang, is sort of undefined. 'Don't see how any of it proves or disproves the existence of a creator though. Talking about such an unimaginable span of time, and our own practically momentary lifespans in it - hardly even a single snapshot's worth - why would we even presume such awareness?

[JetsetBkk]

"Astronomers find farthest galaxy"

I bet there's another one, hiding behind it.

[OZEMADE]

"Astronomers find farthest galaxy"

I bet there's another one, hiding behind it.

The TRUTH is out there. Moulder told me so.

[nottocus]

What was there before the big bang and how did it get there?

Edited May 7, 2015 by nottocus