Hubble sees farther back in time than ever before
Above: This image of the Hubble Ultra-Deep Field is a small part of the deepest infrared image ever taken of the universe. The small blue box outlines the area where astronomers found what may be the most distant galaxy ever seen, 13.2 billion light-years away, meaning its light was emitted just 480 million years after the Big Bang. It is small and very faint and is shown separately in the larger box. The galaxy is shown as blue because it emitted very blue light due to its high rate of star birth, although by the time the light reached Hubble it had been stretched into the infrared by the expansion of space, giving it a redshift value of about 10. Its official name is UDFj-39546284, but astronomers refer to it as the “redshift 10 galaxy candidate.” Credit: NASA, ESA, Garth Illingworth (University of California, Santa Cruz) and Rychard Bouwens (University of California, Santa Cruz and Leiden University) and the HUDF09 Team.
Pasadena, CA— Astronomers have pushed NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope to it limits by finding what they believe to be the most distant object ever seen in the universe—at a distance of 13.2 billion light years, some 3% of the age of universe. This places the object roughly 150 million light years more distant than the previous record holder. The observations provide the best insights yet into the birth of the first stars and galaxies and the evolution of the universe. The research is published in the 27th January edition of Nature.
The dim object is a compact galaxy made of blue stars that existed only 480 million years after the Big Bang. It is tiny. Over one hundred such mini galaxies would be needed to make up our Milky Way.
Co-author Ivo Labbé of the Carnegie Observatories puts the findings into context: “We are thrilled to have discovered this galaxy, but we’re equally surprised to have found only one. This tells us that the universe was changing very rapidly in early times.”
Previous searches had found 47 galaxies at somewhat later times, when the universe was about 650 million years old. The rate of star birth therefore increased by about ten times in the interval from 480 million years to 650 million years. “This is an astonishing increase in such a short period, happening in just 1% of the age of the universe,” says Labbé.
“These observations provide us with our best insights yet into the earliest primeval objects yet to be found,” adds Rychard Bouwens of the University of Leiden in the Netherlands.
Astronomers don’t know exactly when the first stars appeared in the universe, but every step back in time takes them deeper into the early universe’s “formative years” when stars and galaxies were just beginning to emerge in the aftermath of the Big Bang.
“We’re moving into a regime where there are big changes afoot. And what it tells us is that if we go back another couple hundred million years toward the Big Bang we’ll see absolutely dramatic things happening. That will be the time where the first galaxies really are starting to get built up,” says Garth Illingworth of the University of California at Santa Cruz.
The even more distant proto galaxies will require the infrared vision of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, which is the successor to Hubble, and next-generation ground-based telescopes, such as the Giant Magellan Telescope. These new facilities, planned for later this decade, will provide confirming spectroscopic measurements of the tremendous distance of the object being reported today.
After over a year of detailed analysis, the galaxy was positively identified in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field – Infrared (HUDF-IR) data taken in the late summer of both 2009 and 2010. These observations were made with the Wide Field Planetary Camera 3 (WFPC3) starting just a few months after it was installed into the Hubble Space Telescope in May of 2009, during the last NASA space shuttle servicing mission to Hubble.
The object appears as a faint dot of starlight in the Hubble exposures. It is too young and too small to have the familiar spiral shape that is characteristic of galaxies in the local universe, such as the Milky Way. Though individual stars can’t be resolved by Hubble, the evidence suggests that this is a compact galaxy of hot stars that first started to form over 100 to 200 million years earlier in a pocket of dark matter.
The proto galaxy is only visible at the farthest infrared wavelengths observable by Hubble. This means that the expansion of the universe has stretched its light farther that any other galaxy previously identified in the HUDF-IR, to the very limit of Hubble’s capabilities.
Astronomers plumb the depths of the universe by measuring how much the light from an object has been stretched by the expansion of space. This is called redshift value or “z.” Before Hubble was launched, astronomers could only see galaxies out to a z approximately 1, corresponding to 6 billion years after the Big Bang. The Hubble Deep Field taken in 1995 leapfrogged to z=4, or roughly 90 percent of the way back to the beginning of time. The new Advanced Camera and the Hubble Ultra Deep Field pushed back the limit to z~6 after the 2002 servicing mission. Hubble’s first infrared camera, the Near Infrared Camera and Multi Object Spectrometer reached out to z=7. The WFC3/IR reached back to z~8, and now plausibly has penetrated for the first time to z=10 (about 500 million years after the Big Bang). The Webb Space Telescope is expected to leapfrog to z~15, and possibly beyond. The very first stars may have formed between z of 30 to 15, or 100 to 250 million years post Big Bang.
The hypothesized hierarchical growth of galaxies—from stellar clumps to majestic spirals—didn’t become evident until the Hubble Space Telescope deep field exposures. The first 500 million years of the universe’s existence, from a z of 1000 to 10 is now the missing chapter in the hierarchical growth of galaxies. It’s not clear how the universe assembled structure out of a darkening, cooling fireball of the Big Bang. As with a developing embryo, astronomers know there must have been an early period of rapid changes that would set the initial conditions to make the universe of galaxies that exist today. Astronomers eagerly await the new space and ground-based telescopes to find out!
The Truth Wears Off: Is there something wrong with the scientific method?
by Jonah Lehrer
December 13, 2010
(excerpt:)
This suggests that the decline effect is actually a decline of illusion. While Karl Popper imagined falsification occurring with a single, definitive experiment—Galileo refuted Aristotelian mechanics in an afternoon—the process turns out to be much messier than that. Many scientific theories continue to be considered true even after failing numerous experimental tests. Verbal overshadowing might exhibit the decline effect, but it remains extensively relied upon within the field. The same holds for any number of phenomena, from the disappearing benefits of second-generation antipsychotics to the weak coupling ratio exhibited by decaying neutrons, which appears to have fallen by more than ten standard deviations between 1969 and 2001. Even the law of gravity hasn’t always been perfect at predicting real-world phenomena. (In one test, physicists measuring gravity by means of deep boreholes in the Nevada desert found a two-and-a-half-per-cent discrepancy between the theoretical predictions and the actual data.) Despite these findings, second-generation antipsychotics are still widely prescribed, and our model of the neutron hasn’t changed. The law of gravity remains the same.
Such anomalies demonstrate the slipperiness of empiricism. Although many scientific ideas generate conflicting results and suffer from falling effect sizes, they continue to get cited in the textbooks and drive standard medical practice. Why? Because these ideas seem true. Because they make sense. Because we can’t bear to let them go. And this is why the decline effect is so troubling. Not because it reveals the human fallibility of science, in which data are tweaked and beliefs shape perceptions. (Such shortcomings aren’t surprising, at least for scientists.) And not because it reveals that many of our most exciting theories are fleeting fads and will soon be rejected. (That idea has been around since Thomas Kuhn.) The decline effect is troubling because it reminds us how difficult it is to prove anything. We like to pretend that our experiments define the truth for us. But that’s often not the case. Just because an idea is true doesn’t mean it can be proved. And just because an idea can be proved doesn’t mean it’s true. When the experiments are done, we still have to choose what to believe. ♦
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/12/13/101213fa_fact_lehrer
PhilW1776 says:
January 27, 2011 at 9:32 am
Lots of unscientific emotional statements here; folks not liking the BB because it feels wrong. Sadly another unconscious manifestation of liberal feels good rationalization from nominal conservatives.
I question it not on feelings but the First Law of Thermodynamics. If matter/energy cannot be created then the BB is wrong.
Re: “(In one test, physicists measuring gravity by means of deep boreholes in the Nevada desert found a two-and-a-half-per-cent discrepancy between the theoretical predictions and the actual data.)”
It turns out that the Gravitational Constant G is one of the least constant of all of the constants. Theorists actually struggle to properly pin the precise value down (some claim that the measured values are not actually converging to any specific number). The readers of WUWT will surely be interested to know that there was a short NewScientist article sometime back which claimed that the G used in solar models is actually a different number than that used to model the planets!
PhilW1776 says:
January 27, 2011 at 9:32 am
I’d say that a lack of evidence is the basis for refutation than emotion.
If you want to infer a theory by invoking back ground radiation, you might as well say that the moon just became visible as night time arrives, thus the moon has just come into existance at that moment
Re: “Ever try challenging an astronomer about the “big bang”? You’ll find out just how dogmatic they are.”
I would not wish it upon my worst enemy. The BAUT treatment could arguably qualify as theoretical torture under the Geneva Conventions. This is where good, creative problem-solving approaches and ideas go to die. And once they’re done with you, they chew up the transcripts so good that it’s akin to spraying graffiti onto the tombstone.
Some members of the Astronomy Picture of the Day spend all of their free time roaming around the Internet to extend this form of goodwill into areas where dogma and ideology have not yet established rule — as if to nip any competing approaches in the bud, before the public gets wind of them. Some even go by the name of “Nereid”, which is Greek for nymphs who protect sailors during treacherous seas. I think it is perhaps synonymous with the concept of the fraternity pledge, but within astrophysical circles (?).
What was particularly telling was the fact that, back in my own days of online advocacy for the thunderbolts.info site, posting arguments to the Digg.com forums pulled more visitors to that site than the BAUT site. I could tell because the quantcast figures precisely matched my online advocacy timeline. Good arguments are in fact very powerful. One person today can make a big difference.
But, of course, eventually, the Nereids will come and find you! And they will not relent until others are convinced to ignore you. And they will even make sure that people cannot even look up your theory on wikipedia. It’s so great that we can depend upon these people to protect the public from becoming “confused”.
We live in a very strange world.
The other galaxies in the picture, are they photoshopped in or are they really in the picture?
Re: “Lots of unscientific emotional statements here; folks not liking the BB because it feels wrong. Sadly another unconscious manifestation of liberal feels good rationalization from nominal conservatives.”
If that is your lens, then by all means, look through it! But, for many of us, it appears that conventional theorists are looking down the wrong end of the telescope, and telling us what they imagine that they see! This is an error in *approach* which we can also discuss in philosophical terms. And that is definitely a conversation worth having, as it helps us to correct course to better ideas.
Re: “I question it not on feelings but the First Law of Thermodynamics. If matter/energy cannot be created then the BB is wrong.”
There is clearly more than one way to skin this cat.
But, very few actually take the next step and try to investigate the underlying causes for this grand mistake — as it is far easier to criticize the BB cosmology than to begin the personal investigation into alternatives with an open mind. Without a detailed understanding of the philosophical and historical errors, people tend to be overwhelmed by the options for where to re-start their reading.
The biggest impediments tend to be personal; they are the ideologies which always tend to survive skepticism of the BB cosmology, such as:
– The Sun is internally powered
– Electricity in space is unimportant
– Uniformitarianism
The ideologies, after all, require no logical foundation. They are another form of human attachment (aka “emotion”).
It also seems that cosmological thought in humans is a form of malleable finite state machine, and that there are some states of knowledge which present no workable pathway to better ideas. At this point, a person “knows too much”, and they begin to appear to younger generations as unable to alter foundational assumptions.
And with so many assumptions and speculations mixed in with observational and experimental facts in scientific journalism today, some people find that the entire system requires a reboot.
There’s lots of ways to discuss the problems in science today. People will one day write entire books on the subject of what went wrong — as Jeff Schmidt has already done with “Disciplined Minds”.
1DandyTroll says: {January 26, 2011 at 4:05 pm}
“Isn’t it kind of odd that we mostly readily accept the unproven hypothesis of Big Bang but not the unproven hypothesis of CAGW even though CAGW literally is closer to home in both space and time.”
The proponents of the Big Bang are not asking us to:
1. change our lifestyles
2. accept $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ of new taxes
3. be the boss of us for our own good
4. consider ourselves guilty of being a plague on Mother Gaia
Pull My Finger says: {January 27, 2011 at 7:52 am}
“Not to mention the instantaneous communications from the Enterprise to Starfleet over several light-years distance. I guess having to wait 8 years for a response would make for a dull series. :)”
So it also was with “beaming”. The producers knew they could not waste time by showing travel in a craft down to a planet and back so they invented “beaming”. It was much more fun to watch the resolution of the plot within the 60 minute time frame rather than be realistic about travel. However, I always wondered why they just couldn’t assemble a bunch of atoms at the destination using the “biogenetic codes” of Capt Kirk and attending crew to create an additional one of each there while the “real” versions stayed aboard safe and sound.
And let’s not forget the famous “swish” sound the Enterprise made in the opening credits as it traveled through space.
Re: “The Big Bang is good science because it made predictions that are falsifiable and has so far passed test after test. The true scientific method in public observation.”
So it would seem to those who do not actively follow the criticisms. After all, it’s a lot of work to do so …
Re: “Somewhat after the big bang theory (a derogatory moniker from Fred Hoyle who favored the steady state model) was proposed, radio astronomers unexpectedly found microwave radio ‘noise’ in all directions which was caused by the 3 degree Kelvin thermal radiation predicted by the big bang model.”
And yet, all is not well for the conventional theories in radio astronomy circles today. The most glaring problem is that the interstellar filaments marked by HI hydrogen and observed by one of the world’s most famous radio astronomers, Gerrit Verschuur, are in fact long, spaghetti-like twisted filaments.
Of course, conventional theorists still call these structures “clouds”, even as Verschuur has observed them to emit the infamous critical ionization velocities at 50 km/s and 35 km/s. The 35 km/s signal is especially widespread, and is associated with the “anomalous high velocity clouds”.
Verschuur even went one step further and linked WMAP hotspots with these filaments. But, conventional theorists, not surprisingly, fail to see any means of using his observations to confirm their theories. After all, CIV’s are not supposed to be seen in space, as that would suggest that these interstellar filaments are in fact conducting electrical currents.
Something that appears to be lost on a lot of famous cosmological thinkers is that plasma beams naturally emit microwaves. Yes, the microwaves in the laboratory are synchrotron, but plasma cosmologists need not infer metaphysical causes for thermalizing the synchrotron into a smooth black body. This is perhaps why Fred Hoyle famously stated …
“A man who falls asleep on the top of a mountain and who awakes in a fog does not think he is looking at the origin of the Universe. He thinks he is in a fog.”
Re: “The BB also predicted the relative amounts of hydrogen and helium which percentages were much later measured throughout the observable universe.”
In philosophy of science, there is clearly a burden to compare and contrast cosmological theories. To cite this as an accomplishment seems to baldly assume that the competing paradigm cannot make the same claim, right?
Re: “There are many other such observations, any of which could have falsified and therefore blown away (Heh!) the BB theory. It’s a model which has been ‘tweaked’ by later improvements such as Cosmic Inflation, etc. but has stood the brief 50 yr test of time.”
If the challenge is to create a workable universe with only 4% baryonic matter, I don’t think that it will be hard to formulate something to compare it against.
Re: “Arp’s iconoclastic observations are old school and have not stood the test of time.”
Yes, this is what happens when you present images of his filaments connecting high-redshift quasars to nearby galaxies in the wrong spectra. It lends the illusion to that the bridge is not there.
Re: “The electromagnetic plasma guys are true fringe folks who have more emotion and personal investment than science in their closely held alternative view.”
Hannes Alfven was a Nobel laureate. He actually created the plasma models which are to this day used, but he did so at the beginning of his career. By the end, after a lifetime of experimental research with plasmas, he realized that he had made a huge mistake. And he tried in vain to correct the record on his own mistake:
“I thought that the frozen-in concept was very good from a pedagogical point of view, and indeed it became very popular. In reality, however, it was not a good pedagogical concept but a dangerous “pseudopedagogical concept.” By “pseudopedagogical” I mean a concept which makes you believe that you understand a phenomenon whereas in reality you have drastically misunderstood it.”
[..]
“At that time (1950) we already knew enough to understand that a frozen-in treatment of the magnetosphere was absurd. But I did not understand why the frozen-in concept was not applicable.”
[..]
“In 1963, Fälthammar and I published the second edition of Cosmical Electrodynamics [12] together. [..] We analyzed the consequences of this in some detail, and demonstrated with a number of examples that in the presence of an E|| the frozen-in model broke down. On [12, p. 191] we wrote:
“In low density plasmas the concept of frozen-in lines of force is questionable. The concept of frozen-in lines of force may be useful in solar physics where we have to do with high- and medium-density plasmas, but may be grossly misleading if applied to the magnetosphere of the earth. To plasma in interstellar space it should be applied with some care.”
Re: “Cosmology is alive and well as a science and has progressed greatly since it was closer to philosophy in the 1950s. Better instruments across all wavelengths have put measurement to the ideas and enabled those flawed postulates to be refuted by observation.”
Einstein called his work “thought experimenting”, and he held out that he might be wrong all the way to his death. When he passed away, the book “Worlds in Collision” was observed to be on his desk, as testament to his own personal doubt.
In fact, the historical record is quite clear that Einstein’s followers have always been much more rabid in his beliefs than himself.
BA was pretty reasonable before merging with UT to become BAUT. After that, even the moderators were trolls against anything that was not consensus. The BA never even mentioned GW till after the merger, now he regularly refers to skeptics as deniers. The lure of money can corrupt anybody, I guess.
Mark
I have to say the plasma theory isn’t any more ridiculous than String Theory, which to me, smells of Mary Jane laced Unicorn Poo. 🙂 I’ll now duck for incoming String Theory missiles!
BB has a lot, a LOT, of holes, but it at least a reasonable framework that is testable within our knowledge and comprehension of physics. And most BB proponets freely admit that the early moments of BB are almost enterly beyond the realm of explanation at this point. Much less the singularity and before, which they simply don’t even attempt to explain.
The z factor in redshift is a bit of an oddity.
I have imaged out to z=0.5 (Abell 851) which was used as a milestone in cosmology for the Deep Fields that Hubble has taken.
This is the point where space gets vast in a hurry. All-sky scans and surveys don’t do deep imaging, there being way too much ground to cover and too few resources. Someone should do the math required to determine how many 1,000’s of year Hubble would have to operate to cover the sky at Deep-Field image depth.
Feeling small yet?
Just have to get this off my chest.
Time does not exist. Vibrations in a ceasium atom or quartz crystal do, BUT not time. Time is a made up measurement created by man. Why does negative time work in every equation but not in real life. Because we make the damn rules in math not life.
Many have said that ID people live in a self-centered god world. Well so do scientist. They’re God and make up the rules/theories and proclaim them unto man as truth. AGW, Big Bang, Quantum Physics… These are no more provable than God but we are told to believe the math, which you guys invented and construde to fit the agenda at hand.
In summary… Everyone is full of Shite and should just enjoy the life you have been given.
Treat others as you would want them to treat you. This explains everything we need to know for the limited time we will spend on this rock in a void.
I wonder if a one dimensional missile hurts when it hits you?
Andrew30
“Are you saying that there is some magic distance at which point things that are farther apart than the magic distance expand and move apart and things closer then the magic distance do not?”
Perhaps Smokey wasn’t clear enough. You are quite right to question a magic distance. Space expands at a rate that is proportional to the distance between two points. What that means is that, if for sake of argument, the space across a distance of a billion light years is expanding at 1/4 the speed of light, then the space across a distance of half a billion light years would be expanding at 1/16 the speed of light, and so on for however far you want to go.
The reason for this is simply because each ‘slice’ of space is expanding away from it’s neighbours. If you are standing on my left and Smokey on my right and I walk to my right at 4 mph and Smokey walks at 4mph away from me (relative to me) in the same direction, then he is walking away from you at 8 mph. If you were also walking away at 4mph relative to me, then you would be walking 12mph away from Smokey.
This means that at local distances, the expansion of space is very slow and gravity prevails. Gravity holds clusters of galaxys together because space does not expand sufficiently fast across the local cluster. When you get to the distances of individual atoms I can’t even guess what the expansion would be – probably would have to be measured in planck lengths.
Smokey,
“Graeme M,
The concept of inflation explains it. In a tiny fraction of a second the universe expanded to close to its present size.”
From what I’ve read, inflation occured between 10^-36 and 10^-32 seconds after the big bag. During that time it doubled at least 100 times in size, going from the size of a proton to about 10cm across. Quite a lot less than the present size of the universe.
If we accept current theory about the Solar System it was created circa 4.6 billion years ago. However the earth contains elements above atomic numer 26 ( Iron) which according to current theory can only occur during a supernovae.
Thus we have a theory that dust from a supernovae condensed under gravitiational force formed the Solar System.
A star of this size lasts some 400 -500 million years. The dust then accretes to from the sun and the planets. It would suggest that the event happened some 10 billion years ago. I still think the age of the Universe is seriously underestimated. I believe that an age of 30 billion years would be more appropriate.
We also need to evalaute any bias towards a geocentic view of the Universe. Our Solar System is unlikely t0 be at the centre of it. If there is a galaxy 13.6 billion years away the in the opposite direction there should be galaxies . say no more then 0.4 billiuon years old.
This all pre-supposes that we are the only Universe.
Curiousgeorge says:” January 26, 2011 at 3:38 pmHere’s a question to wrap your head around if you can. In what direction was the Hubble aimed to capture this object? And does it make any difference when looking back this far in spacetime? :)”
Good question since there is now data to suggest that the fine structure “constant” differs depending upon in which direction one is looking. Also, the big bang is a theory with many problems when trying to rectify it with quantum theory. And as noted above is not the “fact” that many accept it as nor is the theory regarding red shift, which is accepted as fact by most. Very interesting stuff.
Vince Causey says: January 27, 2011 at 12:56 pmSmokey,
“Graeme M,
“The concept of inflation explains it. In a tiny fraction of a second the universe expanded to close to its present size.”
From what I’ve read, inflation occured between 10^-36 and 10^-32 seconds after the big bag. During that time it doubled at least 100 times in size, going from the size of a proton to about 10cm across. Quite a lot less than the present size of the universe.”
The concept of inflation was invented, like dark matter, dark energy and dark flow to attempt to explain away many of the inconsistencies between the big bang theory and observational astronomy. Just like Einstein did with the cosmological constant he invented when the then observational data showed an unchanging universe when his math said it should be expanding. There are other potential explanations for these inconsistencies.
Tom in Florida says: January 27, 2011 at 11:35 amPull My Finger says: {January 27, 2011 at 7:52 am}
“Not to mention the instantaneous communications from the Enterprise to Starfleet over several light-years distance. I guess having to wait 8 years for a response would make for a dull series. :)”
This one is easy in quantum theory. Entangled particles theoretically communicate instantaneously over whatever distance, of course the “whatever distance” in the tests I have read about is not too far.
mkelly says: January 27, 2011 at 10:03 amPhilW1776 says:
January 27, 2011 at 9:32 am
” Lots of unscientific emotional statements here; folks not liking the BB because it feels wrong. Sadly another unconscious manifestation of liberal feels good rationalization from nominal conservatives.
I question it not on feelings but the First Law of Thermodynamics. If matter/energy cannot be created then the BB is wrong.”
There are significant observations which suggest that at different energy levels and, indeed, even in different places, different rules and constants may apply just like Newtonian physics worked well enough at certain energy levels but relativity works better at higher energy levels. We may not yet be at the root level of physical science laws and constants, if there are any.
Ah the trick is figuring out which one are connected and getting them all in that thingy in Uhura’s ear!
—
This one is easy in quantum theory. Entangled particles theoretically communicate instantaneously over whatever distance, of course the “whatever distance” in the tests I have read about is not too far.
Chris Reeve says: January 27, 2011 at 9:40 amRe: “It’s very hard to discuss relativity, and the big bang with a language developed to tell other monkeys where the ripe fruit is
You need mathematics to explain it not english”
Chris,
re: your reply, I agree:
Einstein was probably a pretty bright guy and he put the math to his work AFTER he worked out the logic with mental experiments. He also believed that the bottom line would be something “simple” like his E=MCsquared. And, of course, we know that most of his theories work quite well observationally, for those that can be measured. Cosmologically, we are still not there in the observational area.
I am thoroughly enjoying this conversation, reading the different cosmological views of various commentators.
Every time we think we know how big the universe is, a new discovery comes along that shows we erred on the small side. For an interesting example of how large our Sun is, watch this gif: click