THE BORE
General => The Superdeep Borehole => Topic started by: MrAngryFace on February 14, 2008, 02:19:39 PM
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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23130389/
Images taken with the Hubble Space Telescope have revealed the galaxy at almost 13 billion light-years away, making it the strongest candidate for the most distant galaxy ever seen, said European Southern Observatory astronomer Piero Rosati, who helped make the discovery.
Since the galaxy is so far away, its light took ages to reach us, so what we see now is a snapshot of how this galaxy looked 13 billion years ago. At that point in time, the galaxy would have been newly formed, so the new observations provide a baby picture.
"We certainly were surprised to find such a bright young galaxy 13 billion years in the past," said astronomer Garth Illingworth of the University of California, Santa Cruz, a member of the research team. "This is the most detailed look to date at an object so far back in time."
The young galaxy, called A1689-zD1, was born about 700 million years after the Big Bang that scientists think created the universe. For most of its early life, the universe languished in "dark ages" when matter in the expanding universe cooled and formed clouds of hydrogen. Eventually matter began to clump into stars and galaxies that radiated light, heating up the universe and clearing the fog.
Scientists think this newly discovered galaxy may have been one of the first to form and help end the dark ages.
The discovery was made possible by a natural magnifying glass — the galaxy cluster Abell 1689, which lies between us and the distant galaxy. Abell 1689's gravity is so strong it bends light that passes near it, acting like a giant zoom lens that magnifies what we see.
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Really, if you think about this, it isn't interesting at all. Not in the short run at least. Aka not in our lifetime.
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Why even reply?
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I LOVE SPACE
if only it loved us back
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Why even reply?
uhh I wasn't discounting your thread, I was talking about the issue, sheesh.
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Space is eventually going to crush us in the future during the Big Crunch nooo. Its either that or the Big Freeze. Pick your poison.
Big Crunch sounds more exciting and big picture!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_fate_of_the_universe
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Why even reply?
uhh I wasn't discounting your thread, I was talking about the issue, sheesh.
Quit sneering at science!
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listen to/watch static and you can slightly hear/see the big bang!!!!
They say this one is about 700 million years old and they say the first galaxies began forming ~300 million years after the big bang, so I hope sometime in my life we can find the first galaxy :hyper
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Here's one of the pictures Hubble sent back:
(http://www.megatonik.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/super_mario_galaxy.jpg)
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that about wraps it up for jesus christ