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The Hubble Space Telescope has been “pushed to its limits,” and the result is a total shocker.
On Friday, NASA announced that the telescope had seen farther back in time than ever before, successfully observing the most distant (and oldest) galaxy in the universe to date.
The galaxy, dubbed GN-z11, is located a record 13.4 billion light years from Earth -- that’s just 400 million years after the Big Bang -- in the direction of the constellation Ursa Major. (In case you need an astronomy refresher, distance and age are linked here. The farther away an object is from Earth, the more time it takes for its light to reach us.)
“We’ve taken a major step back in time, beyond what we’d ever expected to be able to do with Hubble,” said Yale University astronomer Pascal Oesch in a news release. “We see GN-z11 at a time when the universe was only three percent of its current age.”
The previous record-holder for the most distant galaxy was known as EGS8p7, located some 13.24 billion light years from Earth, or 573 million years after the Big Bang.
Just how do astronomers measure such large distances?
Due to an expanding universe, distant objects appear to be moving away from Earth as its light is stretched to longer, redder wavelengths, a phenomenon known as “cosmological redshift.” Determining a galaxy's redshift can indicate its distance away from Earth.
“The greater the redshift, the farther the galaxy,” NASA explained.
The space agency said the telescope's latest finding revealed “surprising new clues” about the beginnings of our universe.
“This discovery pushes back the frontier of our knowledge regarding the earliest phases of the universe and advances our quest to witness cosmic dawn,” Patrick McCarthy, interim president of the Giant Magellan Telescope Organization, told Mashable. “Clear evidence that stars and galaxies formed soon after the Big Bang will challenge competing theories regarding the formation of the modern universe.”
NASA said it expects to find even older galaxies with the help of the James Webb Space Telescope, due to launch in 2018.
“This new discovery shows that the Webb telescope will surely find many such young galaxies reaching back to when the first galaxies were forming,” astronomer Garth Illingworth of the University of California, Santa Cruz, said in the release.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/03/04 14:06:41
INSANE army lists still available!!!! Now being written in 8th edition format! I have Index Imperium 1, Index Imperium 2, Index Xenos 2, Codex Orks Codex Tyranids, Codex Blood Angels and Codex Space Marines!
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It is a very humbling feeling when you pause to reflect on just how big the universe is. Heck, even our own solar system is mind-bogglingly, impossibly big and it is the tiniest, most insignificant bit of a tiny, insignificant galaxy.
Not sure how many of you read John Ringo, but I'm reading the Troy Rising series (for like the 4th time), and this makes me think of the SAPL, the giant mirror system that humans used for space mining/ship destroying, and the applications it has to supplement deep space research as well.
I wonder if there was good science behind his writing, and if so we're looking at such possibilities.
curran12 wrote: It is a very humbling feeling when you pause to reflect on just how big the universe is. Heck, even our own solar system is mind-bogglingly, impossibly big and it is the tiniest, most insignificant bit of a tiny, insignificant galaxy.
Awesome. Pure awesome.
Yup. This stuff is cool as hell but at the same time makes my roughly average human brain just melt
curran12 wrote: It is a very humbling feeling when you pause to reflect on just how big the universe is. Heck, even our own solar system is mind-bogglingly, impossibly big and it is the tiniest, most insignificant bit of a tiny, insignificant galaxy.
Awesome. Pure awesome.
Yup. This stuff is cool as hell but at the same time makes my roughly average human brain just melt
“Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.”
djones520 wrote:Not sure how many of you read John Ringo, but I'm reading the Troy Rising series (for like the 4th time), and this makes me think of the SAPL, the giant mirror system that humans used for space mining/ship destroying, and the applications it has to supplement deep space research as well.
I wonder if there was good science behind his writing, and if so we're looking at such possibilities.
I loved those books! The SAPL was one of my favorite concepts in the stories, although it never made me think of the Hubble telescope. Actually it made me think of that solar laser thing from the James Bond movie Die Another Day.
Kilkrazy wrote:“Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.”
Exalted! You win the thread!
My armies (re-counted and updated on 11/7/24, including modeled wargear options):
Dark Angels: ~16000 Astra Militarum: ~1200 | Imperial Knights: ~2300 | Leagues of Votann: ~1300 | Tyranids: ~3400 | Stormcast Eternals: ~5000 | Kruleboyz: ~3500 | Lumineth Realm-Lords: ~700
Check out my P&M Blogs: ZergSmasher's P&M Blog | Imperial Knights blog | Board Games blog | Total models painted in 2024: 40 | Total models painted in 2025: 25 | Current main painting project: Tomb Kings
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~16000 Astra Militarum: 
~1200 | Imperial Knights: 
~2300 | Leagues of Votann: 
~1300 | Tyranids: 
~3400 | Stormcast Eternals: 
~5000 | Kruleboyz: 
~3500 | Lumineth Realm-Lords: 
~700
