Hey, fundies--try explaining this! APOD presents quasar 12.7 billion years away [View All]

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Caption:

Explanation: Spiky stars are nearby, but fuzzy galaxies are strewn far across the Universe in this cosmic view. Spanning about 1/2 degree on the sky, the pretty picture is the result of astronomer Johannes Schedler's project to look back in time, toward a quasar 12.7 billion light-years away. The quasar is just visible in the full resolution image at the position marked by short vertical lines (center). The intrinsically bright nucleus of a young, active galaxy powered by a supermassive black hole, the quasar was recently identified as one of the most distant objects known. Since light travels at a finite speed, the galaxies receding into the distance are seen as they were in the increasingly remote past. The quasar appears as it did about 12.7 billion years ago, when the Universe was just 7 percent of its present age. Of course, the expansion of the Universe has redshifted the light. Schedler added image data extending to the near-infrared, acquired by collaborator Ken Crawford, to detect the distant quasar, with a measured redshift of 6.04.

For more:

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html


Uh, gee, guys, if earth is really only 10,000 years old, how the fuck do you all explain that an object is 12.7 billion light years away? Perhaps your (cough, cough) god somehow misplaced his map and couldn't remember how much time it took to supposedly create the cosmos? Or just maybe the devil put these stars more than 10,000 light years away to test you blithering idiots? Too bad you don't have critical thinking skills--you won't need them to work at McDonalds, I know, but surely some of you aspire to something a little higher on the food chain?

Trust in Occam's Razor when in doubt.