Strange New "Species" of Ultra-Red Galaxy Discovered

Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics ^ | December 1, 2011

[decimon]

Cambridge, MA - In the distant reaches of the universe, almost 13 billion light-years from Earth, a strange species of galaxy lay hidden. Cloaked in dust and dimmed by the intervening distance, even the Hubble Space Telescope couldn't spy it. It took the revealing power of NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope to uncover not one, but four remarkably red galaxies. And while astronomers can describe the members of this new "species," they can't explain what makes them so ruddy.

"We've had to go to extremes to get the models to match our observations," said Jiasheng Huang of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA). Huang is lead author on the paper announcing the find, which was published online by the Astrophysical Journal.

Spitzer succeeded where Hubble failed because Spitzer is sensitive to infrared light - light so red that it lies beyond the visible part of the spectrum. The newfound galaxies are more than 60 times brighter in the infrared than they are at the reddest colors Hubble can detect.

Galaxies can be very red for several reasons. They might be very dusty. They might contain many old, red stars. Or they might be very distant, in which case the expansion of the universe stretches their light to longer wavelengths and hence redder colors (a process known as redshifting). All three reasons seem to apply to the newfound galaxies.

All four galaxies are grouped near each other and appear to be physically associated, rather than being a chance line-up. Due to their great distance, we see them as they were only a billion years after the Big Bang - an era when the first galaxies formed.

[Boogieman]

“I’m fine with changing theories because that’s what they are.”

Haven’t the evolution defenders straightened you out about that yet? Theories, according to them, are more certain than Laws!

[Free Vulcan]

Beautiful but also eerie. Kinda looks like the space fleet that was on the losing side.

[JimSEA]

Chixalub triggers Deccab Traps, 30,000 years massive environmental chaos including some very sudden cold weather. It has always made more sense than a single event scenario.

Too many don’t understand science and like to play with straw men.

I suggest we both duck now.

[montyspython]

"Due to their great distance, we see them as they were only a billion years after the Big Bang "

In other words, we are seeing into the past, we have no idea how these galaxies look at the present moment.

[cripplecreek]

Bob Bakker is right. If all the dinosaurs died within a few weeks or months, where are the vast beds of bones and why did shallow water creatures survive when global temperatures rose to near broiler temperatures and then fell to below freezing.

I personally believe the dinosaurs were well on their way to extinction when they were hammered by a few different events that finished them off.

[JimSEA]

The fact that birds and mammals, both warm blooded, survived and equatorial species of reptiles, etc. argue for cold weather having a lot to do with it, especially if the dinosaurs were already on the edge due to virus or other weaknesses.