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!
Yep, I remember when we made that one, it was a Kit Set model, but half way through the assembly we thought we’d pimp it up.
Just for Giggles we put Blue Giants in an outer halo, then arranged some White Super Stars in a complex set up in the middle, gave it a nudge and off it rolled.
Any-who, back then Super Stars came in packs of twelve, and if you’re in the trade you got a free pack for every ten packs you purchased, when had about a million packs left over and started messing about with the Great Attractor, seems all those super stars had pulling power.
Ah those were the days, not like now,…can’t knock out a galaxy without some Moron insisting on dumping a cheap a$$ Black Hole in the middle, just use a Super Star stoopid!
I still have a three dozen Super’s in the shed, might pop them on EBAY.
Hoser says:
January 26, 2011 at 8:14 pm
“… Creationism is not scientific.”
How does one “test” evolution? A science must be testable and falsifiable! Is there a single example of a species evolving into another in the scientific record? How does one evolve, say, an eyeball, one mutation at a time? (particularly without some sort of “design” pointing to the end product.) Where are all the “duds” which didn’t pan out?
I would submit NEITHER is scientific; each depends on faith!
Dave Dodd says:
January 27, 2011 at 7:56 pm
You hit the nail on the head with that comment!!!
I submit to Anthony that now AGW is getting old hat WUWT takes on the evolutionists team/lobby. I think he would be surprised by the following he would get.
Go for it Anthony………
mkelly says: If matter/energy cannot be created then the BB is wrong.”
Nope. Energy of position is negative. So if you add up the energy of mass and the negative energy of position you get a big zero. * Plus or minus Brownian motion, aka drunkard’s walk.
But I still don’t have enough math to explain inflation – either the cosmological or the monetary kind. Plus, according to all Quantum theories, protons should decay, but don’t. Plus, electrons fit the equations of a black hole to a T. Plus, observational effects of what is called dark matter. 2.5% error in Gravitational constant? Maybe that explains my bathroom scale. So much inference on a small slope with an R-squared of 0.001. And a negative mass squared for neutrinos.
Then, the first look for solar neutrinos found zero. And the first solar eclipse looking for gravitational curvature found – zero. The actual mass of Pluto couldn’t have caused the reported wobble in Neptune’s orbit. And scientists predicted any of zero, one, or two planets beyond Uranus, based on the observed wobbles of Uranus. Our data contain many “maybes” and “sighted once” and sighted several times, but the orbits didn’t match Newtonian physics and we stopped seeing it anyway.
Won’t find any 15 billion year red shifts, even at z=1 billion, it would come out at some number of years after the big bang, which by definition is now set at 13.7 billion years. Suppose we received signals from Andromeda, that added up to astronomical data. Suppose further that we could triangulate deep space with this data and that some galaxy showed at 40 billion light years away. Some astronomers would swear that the Andromedans were fudging the data, some laymen would claim the whole thing was a fake, some biologists would be mad that they hadn’t sent any biological information, some would want us to spend more on defense, while others worried about the aliens showing up at Home Depot parking lots. Yet others would urge us not to respond because then the Andromedans would know where we lived, and might send us an Andromeda strain or something. Yet science would take the data and try to integrate it with the rest of known data, and just might come up with a plausible explanation.
That is, until the Andromedans politely asked us about our religious beliefs.
Cosmic microwave background radiation and X-ray background are not isotropic. This is confirmed by the latest, most exact measurements. And this is all one needs to know to forget about Big Bang creationism.
The rest is human psychology, not cosmology: herding instinct and dogmatism. Scientists are human; therefore, as Galileo observed, most of them are fools.
V in PA “Why does negative time work in every equation but not in real life.”
What do you mean by ‘work’? These equations you speak of are mathematical models. You can do anything you like with the variables in any equation, but they may never be a description of anything real.
Your question was a bit of a puzzle up to the mid-nineteenth century when a Newtonian, mechanistic view was the orthodoxy, but with the emergence of studies of statistical mechanics and thermodynamics they were getting a handle on the arrow of time. If you start with reality and try to deduce certain ‘laws’, one of them will be the Second Law of Thermodynamics. That requires that the arrow of time marches in one direction and can’t be reversed.
“Time does not exist.”
“Vibrations in a cesium atom or quartz crystal do, BUT not time.” To have a vibration there must be a succession of states, otherwise there is no vibration. What can the meaning of vibration mean without a succession of states. A succession of states and events requires time.
“Time is a made up measurement created by man. ” This sounds like the old Sophist argument that ‘man is the measure of all things’. Sure, we define the measurement metric: the ‘second’ is a creation of man in that sense. And again, we men have a perception of time, just as we have perceptions of everything around us. But one should not confuse a measurement system or a perception with underlying reality. If there was no time before man measured it, or ‘created’ the metric, or perceived it, then there would be no succession of events, so nothing before man.
In Christian theology time is created by God, who is himself outside of time and uncreated. There is no succession of thoughts with God: no beginning, no before, earlier, later, after, no end. In philosophy and theology the concept of time is a very difficult one; but as far as the natural world is concerned there is a succession of events. Whether time runs backwards or forwards you can only deny the concept of time if you say that all natural events are simultaneous.
There certainly is nothing like looking for finding things.
It never ceases to amaze me how one simple picture from a telescope can trigger so much discussion.
One approach to avoiding all the ‘upset’ from such pictures is to simply not look.
There were those in Galileo’s day who wouldn’t look through the telescope. They found the implications too upsetting.
Folks, we really must admit we don’t really know what’s going on.
But it sure is fun to keep looking and thinking and listening to the debates.
BTW
RayG says:
January 26, 2011 at 5:24 pm
Members of the ruling class insisting their agenda be advanced, no matter what the facts are?
Time exists, and you don’t have as much of it as you think.
I must say, Anthony has created one of the best blog/forums in terms of attracting great people to WUWT.
I greatly enjoyed all those who posted on this subject, for example. The grace, good humor, very sharp minds, and openess here are very rare compared to other internet sites.
A few here mentioned Star Trek. But the most important part of the Star Trek theme was not noted…to boldly go where no man has gone before.
To me, the essence of science is to do just that.
It can be space or time…or ideas.
To explore.
It seems to me that many here have that same attitude.
Many thanks.
Fascinating article and discussions. But in all of the discussion, I see some pros and cons on the “big bang” theory, but none on any other theories. While the Big Bang is the most popular, the one rub with it is still the singularity. In other words, before the bang, there is nothing to say where, what, how , when or who.
Personally, while I am no quantum mechanic, I think the Brane (or n-Brane) theory has some flash to it. It basically uses known physics laws to explain the origin of the universe. But as with all theories, it still has that “leap of faith” aspect to it – there is as yet no way to prove the existence of multiple n-verses.
My hope for mankind is he gets wise enough one day to prove or disprove the theories of the origin of the universe. I could never be a cat since I am just too damn curious!
I have often pondered the BB. I understand the observation is that the expansion of the universe is increasing in speed over time. What I wonder though is will we ever reach an equilibrium so to speak where expansion slows and eventually stops and then the collective gravity of the universe takes over. Thus sending everything in reverse to an eventual big crunch. Much like shooting a bullet in the air. It seems to just keep going but eventually it will come down. If this is not the case then why the BB in the first place? Why was all the matter in the universe all in one spot? One explanation could be that all the matter in the universe came from another universe where all matter is that dense and some squeezed into our existence. Now existing in a universe where it has room to expand it does so. Of course I have no proof of anything. I simply have my ponderings. The point I make now is that I enjoy thinking about such things and that is what is important to me. Seeing other views gives me new ways to think which also brings me pleasure. Thank you Anthony for giving me one more reason to smile today.
William
Smokey says:
January 26, 2011 at 4:50 pm
No necessarily and most likely neither a math problem nor a typo.
The way I read that is that it that the 480 million years comprise the age of the universe when the galaxy UDFj-39546284 came into existence. With a bit of rounding error, 480 million years work out to about 3 percent of the age of the universe since the big bang, with the remaining 13.2 billion years since the origin of star formation in the galaxy UDFj-39546284 comprising the other 97 percent of the age of the universe.
Thanks, Walter. That makes more sense.
Darn: “No[t] necessarily”
Aha! A typo!☺
The first thing you want to look for when you see a high redshift object/quasar is a nearby galaxy that has an active center.
Next, look along the axis of the galaxy for another quasar. Lots of luck with that though because the pictures which show these kinds of relationships between galaxies and quasars are always cropped. The observations which Halton Arp made during his decades-long career as an astronomer show that quasars occur in pairs along the axis’ of galaxies, like this: Image: http://www.haltonarp.com/illustrations/arphf2
The next inquiry to make is into the redshifts of the twin quasars. The z values match closely, even when there are several pairs located with the same galaxy of origin. Truly fascinating is that the redshifts occur in discrete quantum values.
Image: http://www.haltonarp.com/illustrations/arphf6
Some have asked what difference it makes. This is a surprising, undreamt of picture of the universe based on observation and empirical evidence that show that “galaxies aren’t just these quiescent star piles” as Dr. Arp puts it. They are ejecting radio lobes, jets of relativistic material extending for millions of light years, and quasars. According to Halton Arp and Electric Universe proponents, there is a strong case that can be made that the quasars ejected from galaxies evolve into galaxies. Redshift= youthful matter.
To Zeke the Sneak
Are you saying that it appears that quasars could possibly be acting like offspring of galaxies, and in turn becoming galaxies?
And in turn those further galaxies have more offspring in quasar form, and so on and so on.
In other words, is it possible that parts of the ‘observed universe’ are ‘reproducing’ in a manner not dissimilar to ‘reproduction’ by people and other such creatures?
If so, then I would go along with that observation.
My gut feel has always been that the ‘universe’ is actually a living thing of a sort, rather than the big machine that mainstream science tries to model it as.
Re: “Truly fascinating is that the redshifts occur in discrete quantum values.”
Minor correction, which is worth mentioning: The *raw* redshift value appears to possess a quantized *component*. In other words, there exists separate velocity and quantized components to the total raw redshift value. And these quantized values appear to jump through a very specific sequence of values (!). We are most likely seeing some sort of quantum effect scaled up to astrophysical scales (Wal Thornhill has ideas on what’s going on …).
This is worth mentioning because it seems to be lost on some of Arp’s critics. There is actually a paper floating around which claims to contradict Arp’s observations of quantization, but it does so by ignoring the fact that the raw value also has a velocity component (!). It appears that rigor is not so important when the point of the paper is to disprove an against-the-mainstream idea.
Now, to provide some context, critics generally point to problems with Arp’s statistics, which I presume correlate the active galaxies to the quasar ejecta. This is the exact same strategy which has been deployed against Gerrit Verschuur’s numerous correlations between interstellar HI hydrogen filaments and WMAP hotspots. Whether or not it is the intention, arguments over statistics appear to be very effective at inducing disinterest in the controversy. After all, there is a large segment of our professional scientific institution who lack the interest in statistics necessary to guarantee that they are properly applied to their own papers.
But, Arp’s statistical work does not constitute the entirety of his argument. There are also the images of quasars in front of galaxies (which we are told by conventional theorists are shining through the galaxy), as well as numerous images of filamentary bridges connecting high-redshift quasars to nearby energetic galaxies.
A huge part of what creates all of this controversy is that many of these now-famous bridges are either cropped out of the popular APOD images, or the spectra which shows them are not shown (Stephan’s Quintet being the most famous example). How can we even have a logical conversation about this controversy if the imagery is being toyed with to suit the dismissals?
And as I’ve stated previously, the freely available documentary “Universe — the Cosmology Quest” serves as an excellent introduction to the Arp story.
Perhaps one of the best summaries of the controversy — from the EU perspective — is Don Scott’s here:
http://www.electric-cosmos.org/arp.htm
(This is also one of the very few places on the web where Stephan’s Quintet can be observed without cropping, and with connecting filaments.)
As you guys read through this stuff, I urge you to contemplate the response you see from conventional thinkers in online forums to Arp’s claims. If you are objective and honest, you will at a minimum see controversy here. There is certainly enough evidence for funding this new line of investigation.
We must all keep in mind that Arp — unlike his critics — is not driven by ideology. He merely stumbled upon proof that redshift is more complicated than conventional theory would have us believe, and he has decided to take a stand on this point, in hopes that it will attract more attention to the issue. That his *observations* discredit 60 years of conventional cosmological thinking is merely a byproduct of his research. He did not propose a model which demanded quantized redshifts, and then engage in a search to prove his model. This is an important distinction between him and his critics.
I feel disgusted every time that I think about the treatment he has received. He’s a true hero for standing up for what he believes. Those who dismiss him without digesting the entire controversy are perhaps well-meaning thinkers. But well-meaning people can in fact do great harm. They should allow this debate to take center stage in public awareness, so that the public can make up their own minds. There’s just so much money and time at stake here. If there is even a SLIVER of chance that he is right, then the Big Bang is possibly a mistaken thought experiment, and every day that goes by is lost time and money.
The skeptics among us should realize that this is one of the most critical debates in science today. Literally billions of dollars and the future of science itself is at stake. And yet, what you see amongst conventional theorists is a blatant desire to avoid discussion of the controversy. They repeatedly discuss Arp in terms which are designed to sweep him under the rug. It appears to me that they are prioritizing their quest to prove the Big Bang over the task we gave them — which was an honest investigation of the universe.
The light we see now is billions of years old. For all we know there is a giant neon “eat at Joes” sigh hanging over that galaxy.
this stuff is always amusing to read but the ‘big bang’ is not really a physical theory it is a logical theory….an inconsistent logical theory. like string theory, these guys are not talking about actual empirical objects, they are talking about theoretical objects.
like their fuzzy galaxy…if i look through my $200 dollar burris at a milk jug at 800m, it looks just like that galaxy. however, through my buddies $1500 optics of the same magnification, it looks like a milk jug. but it is the same milk jug.
and i can still put a round through it with my $200 burris 😉
Chris Reeve says:
January 28, 2011 at 3:10 pm
This is worth mentioning because it seems to be lost on some of Arp’s critics. There is actually a paper floating around which claims to contradict Arp’s observations of quantization, but it does so by ignoring the fact that the raw value also has a velocity component (!).
Thanks for that point. I understand there are some who have made the appearance of taking apart Arp’s work through use of statistics. I made an attempt over on tallbloke’s to analyze one of the papers; what they have done is take away the quasars from their parent galaxies and average them, among other hat tricks. Look here for the discussion and links to that abstract, and a few paragraphs from Halton Arp’s book, Seeing Red:
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2010/08/03/new-cosmological-model-bye-bye-big-bang/#comment-1831
But even if one has no time to check the quantization issue or the velocity component, just look at the pictures! What are the chances that these quasars are falling along the axis of these galaxies in pairs, with similar redshifts, and yet are supposed to be receeding millions of light years behind the galaxy? What are the chances? Arp’s Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies has 333 celestial examples. There are even bridges in x-ray between galaxies and quasars. So even one example falsifies the redshift = distance. It topples decades upon decades of astronomical assumptions.
And it poses some questions in physics for why quasars exhibit such intrinsic quantized redshifts. They need to get to work.