Faint galaxy sheds light on universe's early years
Source: LA Times
The Hubble Space Telescope has detected light from a small galaxy emitted about 500 million years after the big bang, an early era of the universe about which scientists know relatively little.
By Eryn Brown,
The Hubble Space Telescope has detected light from a small galaxy emitted just 500 million years after the big bang, a crucial and difficult-to-study era when the universe was very young, scientists reported Wednesday.
Scientists were able to see the ancient galaxy because gravity from a massive galaxy cluster situated between it and Hubble acted as a lens, bending the light from the "incredibly faint" galaxy and magnifying it about 15 times, said Johns Hopkins astronomer Wei Zheng.
"The magnification was key," said Zheng, a coauthor of the study published in the journal Nature.
FULL story and photo at link.
Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-oldest-galaxy-20120920,0,5590185.story
daleo
(21,317 posts)Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)it would be part of the 47% that Romney has disowned.
tomm2thumbs
(13,297 posts)Oh no, I need wine.
daleo
(21,317 posts)And the path followed by light is therefore straight, in the sense of being the shortest path possible.
tomm2thumbs
(13,297 posts)'I am driving my car at the speed of light and I turn on my headlights. What do I see?'
Makes me admire those scientific thinkers who have the brains that make sense of this stuff!
Bernardo de La Paz
(49,075 posts)tomm2thumbs
(13,297 posts)but sometimes you have to accept what you don't know in order to learn what can be taught
thnx
daleo
(21,317 posts)According to special relativity, though general relativity may have some loopholes. Even then, your speed would be lower than lightspeed in your local space.
tomm2thumbs
(13,297 posts)infinite loop-holes I suppose
mindwalker_i
(4,407 posts)It just doesn't. Ever. That's what's so weird about it.
tomm2thumbs
(13,297 posts)but weirder still, yes as you said.. never slows
Bernardo de La Paz
(49,075 posts)That's how lenses work.
mindwalker_i
(4,407 posts)If I'm not mistaken, light is absorbed by molecules in glass or other transparent materials and re-emitted. In between molecules it still goes at light speed. So both your statement and mine are correct.
Corgigal
(9,291 posts)already discovered that.
bluedigger
(17,091 posts)That's how we walked both ways uphill 10 miles to school and back.
MNBrewer
(8,462 posts)The Bible Tells Me So! (tm)
How can something be 500 million light years away from us if Gawd All Mighty (tm) didn't create a universe 6000 years ago with the express intent to fool us into thing He (tm) doesn't exist?
JustABozoOnThisBus
(23,384 posts)The great turtle measures time at a more stately pace than us mortals.
Liberalagogo
(1,770 posts)So, were they able to see Death Star explode?
lumberjack_jeff
(33,224 posts)snooper2
(30,151 posts)LOL...
Just like still believing this is a credible map