Hubble's deepest view ever unveils earliest galaxies (Ultra-deep field)

SpaceFlight Now ^ | March 9, 2004 | unknown author

[alnitak]

Highly recommend you follow the links to get the larger images. Makes great wallpaper! ACS is an awesone instrument.

[swarthyguy]

Awesome. Now to find that pic I saw on TV recently of a Rose Galaxy.

[jtminton]

I hope they find my truck keys. . .

[kjam22]

I'm just to ignorant to understand things. They are looking "back" so far that they are seeing light that hasn't reached us yet.... light from the big bang. So that means that we are moving away from the big bang faster than the light that it caused since we have to look back to see the light from it?

[kjam22]

Since they're looking into the past.... maybe they can find an identifable pic of our solar system somewhere in the past.

[alnitak]

Well, obviously we are seeing light that has reached us, otherwise we wouldn't be able to see it. But it has taken N billion years to reach us, so it represents the state of those galaxies N billion years ago, from our perspective. Likewise, we see the sun as it was 8 1/2 minutes ago because it takes light that long to get here.

Maybe you want to try the Cosmology FAQ? This is one of those sites I promise myself I will read one day...

[Paradox]

Think about this, assuming the universe is fairly regular, (and that this view isn't peering into some dense area of the universe and the rest is not nearly as populated), we are looking at one twelve-point-seven millionth of the sky. And we are seeing some 10,000 galaxies (which themselves consist of BILLIONS of stars each). What is 10,000 multiplied by 12.7 million?

The numbers are beyond staggering.

[kjam22]

Obviously the light hasn't reached us and that's why they need such a magnifing glass to see it.

[Pyro7480]

Is this the "galaxy" you were talking about? (second picture)

[Rennes Templar]

I'm interested in what they will find beyond that yellow outer rim of the big bang.

[flashbunny]

bump for super coolness.

[Monty22]

well, the inflation theory of the big bang and the increasing speed of expansion of the universe from dark energy probably would account for us being 'ahead' of this light enough to see it.

[kjam22]

That's what I said.... we have to be moving faster than the light from the big bang for any of what they are saying to be true. So we should be able to look back and see planet earth somewhere in the past. Right?

[trebb]

I think it's based on the mountain from the old Paul Bunyan/Pecos Bill era stories. The mountain was so tall it took a man 7 days to see it's top, but 7 men could see it in a day. It seems obvious that the more eyes or devices there are to do the looking, the faster you can see something. I would imagine that if we got everyone on Earth to look in the same direction at once, we could see things that haven't even happened yet.

And that's why they won't let me teach science classes.

[kjam22]

:) LOL

[NormsRevenge]

Thanks! Bump

Yahoo! AP link

Hubble Images Show Deepest Universe View Paul Recer/AP

[flashbunny]

Did a little math:

Just using this sparse area as a sample, with 10,000 galaxies in it, yields 127,000,000,000,000 galaxies.

There are an estimated 200 Billion stars in our galaxy alone. I guess that's a good average number to use for this.

200 Billion times 127,000,000,000,000 yields 25,400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 potential stars out there in the sky, and who knows how many planets orbiting them.

Now if John Kerry could just figure out how to tax all of them, there would be no deficit, and everyone in the US could have free health care. Kumbaya.

[dubyagee]

dark energy probably would account for us being 'ahead' of this light enough to see it.

Gotta love this new term 'dark energy.' I'm seeing it alot now. It is something that we know not what it is, but we give it a name 'dark energy' and attribute actions to it, leading us less than scientific folks into believing that 'dark energy' is something of which we know something about...when the fact is we have no clue what 'dark energy' is or what it does, if it exists or doesn't or what actions to attribute to it if it does. Dark energy, hmmmmm....

[Monty22]

Actually, the 'cosmology FAQ' is a fantastic resource on this subject, worth the read for sure.

[mewzilla]

The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whizz.
As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know?
Twelve million miles a minute and that's the fastest speed there is.

So remember when you're feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space,
'Cause there's bugger all down 'ere on Earth!