. Medical and Hospital News .




.
STELLAR CHEMISTRY
Ultra-distant galaxy spied amidst cosmic 'Dark Ages'
by Staff Writers
Pasadena, CA (SPX) Sep 26, 2012

File image.

With the combined power of NASA's Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes, as well as a cosmic magnification effect, a team of astronomers, including Carnegie's Daniel Kelson, have spotted what could be the most distant galaxy ever seen. Light from the young galaxy captured by the orbiting observatories was emitted when our 13.7-billion-year-old universe was just 500 million years old. Their work is published by Nature.

The far-off galaxy existed within an important era when the universe just emerged from the so-called cosmic Dark Ages. During this period, the universe went from a dark, starless expanse to a recognizable cosmos full of galaxies. The discovery of the faint, small galaxy therefore opens up a window into the deepest, remotest epochs of cosmic history.

"This galaxy is the most distant object we have ever observed with high confidence," said lead author Wei Zheng of Johns Hopkins University. "Future work involving this galaxy-as well as others like it that we hope to find- will allow us to study the universe's earliest objects and how the Dark Ages ended."

Light from the primordial galaxy traveled approximately 13.2 billion light-years before reaching NASA's telescopes. In other words, the starlight snagged by Hubble and Spitzer left the galaxy when the universe was just 3.6 percent of its present age. Technically speaking, the galaxy has a redshift, or "z," of 9.6. (Redshift is a term used by astronomers to mark cosmic distances by denoting how much an object's light has shifted into shorter wavelengths due to the expansion of the universe.)

Unlike previous detections of this epoch's galaxy candidates, which were only glimpsed in a single color, or waveband, this newfound galaxy has been seen in five different wavebands. As part of the Cluster Lensing And Supernova survey with Hubble (CLASH) program, the Hubble Space Telescope registered the newly described, far-flung galaxy in four visible and infrared wavelength bands, and Spitzer measured it in a fifth longer-wavelength infrared band, placing the discovery on firmer ground.

Objects at these extreme distances are mostly beyond the detection sensitivity of today's largest telescopes. To catch sight of these early, distant galaxies, astronomers rely on "gravitational lensing."

In this phenomenon, predicted by Albert Einstein a century ago, the gravity of foreground objects warps and magnifies the light from background objects. A massive galaxy cluster situated between our galaxy and the newfound, early galaxy magnified the latter's light, brightening the remote object some 15 times and bringing it into view.

Based on the Hubble and Spitzer observations, astronomers think the distant galaxy is less than 200 million years old. It is also small and compact, containing only about one percent of the Milky Way's mass. According to leading cosmological theories, the first galaxies should indeed have started out tiny. They then progressively merged, eventually accumulating into the sizable galaxies of the more modern universe.

"These first galaxies likely played the dominant role in the epoch of reionization, the event that signaled the end of the universe's Dark Ages," Kelson said. "In essence, the light was finally able to penetrate the fog of the universe."

About 400,000 years after the Big Bang, neutral hydrogen gas formed from cooling particles. The first luminous stars and their host galaxies, however, did not emerge until a few hundred million years later. The energy released by the earliest galaxies is thought to have caused the neutral hydrogen strewn throughout the universe to ionize, or lose an electron, a state that the gas has remained in since that time.

Astronomers plan to study the rise of the first stars and galaxies and the epoch of reionization with the successor to both the Hubble and Spitzer telescopes, NASA's James Webb Telescope, slated for launch in 2018. The newly described, distant galaxy will likely be a prime target given the fortuitousness of it being so strongly gravitationally lensed.

The CLASH program is based on observations made with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy Inc. under NASA contract. This work is also based in part on archival data obtained with the Spitzer Space Telescope, which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology under a contract with NASA.

Related Links
Carnegie Institution
Stellar Chemistry, The Universe And All Within It




.
.
Get Our Free Newsletters Via Email
...
Buy Advertising Editorial Enquiries




.

. Comment on this article via your Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail login.

Share this article via these popular social media networks
del.icio.usdel.icio.us DiggDigg RedditReddit GoogleGoogle



STELLAR CHEMISTRY
Discovery of an Ancient Celestial City Undergoing Rapid Growth
Tokyo, Japan (SPX) Sep 24, 2012
Using the Multi-Object Infrared Camera and Spectrograph (MOIRCS) mounted on the Subaru Telescope, a team of astronomers led by Dr. Masao Hayashi (National Astronomical Observatory of Japan or NAOJ) and Dr. Tadayuki Kodama (Subaru Telescope, NAOJ) has discovered a protocluster of galaxies in the midst of a vigorous process of formation. It is the densest and most active protocluster ever id ... read more


STELLAR CHEMISTRY
EU grants Pakistan flood, unrest aid

Outside View: The militarization of aid

Chinese crew rescued as boat burns in Japan

Satellites to the rescue: Disaster monitoring network extends its services to all

STELLAR CHEMISTRY
Northrop Grumman to Improve Performance of MEMS Inertial Sensors for DARPA

Lockheed Martin Delivers Propulsion Core for the First GPS III Satellite

China launches another 2 navigation system satellites

Improved positioning indoors

STELLAR CHEMISTRY
Human Brains Develop Wiring Slowly, Differing from Chimpanzees

Breaking up harder to do on Facebook

Genetic mutation may have allowed early humans to migrate throughout Africa

Ancient tooth may provide evidence of early human dentistry

STELLAR CHEMISTRY
Hopes dim for Indian rhino mutilated by poachers

Biology and Management of the Green Stink Bug

Poachers target rhinos in flood-hit NE India

How bumblebees find efficient routes without a GPS

STELLAR CHEMISTRY
New SARS-like mystery illness emerges in Mideast: WHO

Patients in Denmark not suffering from new virus: hospital

Swine flu vaccine linked to child narcolepsy: EU watchdog

Cambodians fight malaria with the push of a button

STELLAR CHEMISTRY
China court rejects artist Ai Weiwei's tax appeal

Tibetans seek signs of hope in China's next leader

Tibetans seek signs of hope in China's next leader

Exiles debate future under China for 'prison camp' Tibet

STELLAR CHEMISTRY
Mexico captures Zetas cartel capo 'El Taliban': navy

Mexico captures Zetas cartel capo 'El Taliban': navy

Indian state in grip of a drug epidemic

Mexico troops clash with gunmen, 11 dead

STELLAR CHEMISTRY
Japan economy stuttering ahead of China crisis

Global warming freezes world economy: report

Walker's World: Super-Mario's new dawn

China's stance could weaken its economy: Japan PM


Memory Foam Mattress Review

Newsletters :: SpaceDaily Express :: SpaceWar Express :: TerraDaily Express :: Energy Daily
XML Feeds :: Space News :: Earth News :: War News :: Solar Energy News

.

The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2012 - Space Media Network. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. Privacy Statement