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Hubble's deepest shot is a puzzle
BBC News ^ | 9/23/04 | Staff

Posted on 09/24/2004 8:17:42 AM PDT by Michael_Michaelangelo

Scientists studying the deepest picture of the Universe, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, have been left with a big poser: where are all the stars? The Ultra Deep Field is a view of one patch of sky built from 800 exposures.

The picture shows faint galaxies whose stars were shining just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang.

"Our results based on the Ultra Deep Field are very intriguing and quite a puzzle," says Dr Andrew Bunker, of Exeter University, UK, who led a team studying the new data."

"They're certainly not what I expected, nor what most of the theorists in astrophysics expected."

"There is not enough activity to explain the re-ionisation of the Universe," Dr Bunker told the BBC. "Perhaps there was more action in terms of star formation even earlier in the history of the Universe - that's one possibility.

"Another exciting possibility is that physics was very different in the early Universe; our understanding of the recipe stars obey when they form is flawed."


(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...


TOPICS: Extended News; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: galaxies; hubble; puzzle; space; ultradeepfield; universe
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To: RadioAstronomer
Piffle!

I haven't seen this much codswallop on a single thread in quite a while.

With the refinement of specialization, we have lost our intuitiveness.

41 posted on 09/24/2004 10:15:16 AM PDT by bondserv (Alignment is critical! †)
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To: Calusa
Now I must admit that even I have a tiny little problem.

If, for instance, I was in a tiny space-ship located on the surface of the first Atomic bomb. That bomb exploded in 1945 and my little ship has been traveling along with it's light and shock-wave for the last 59 years.

I do not care how you manipulate the math, I should always be able to view the origin of the explosion from my space ship's window as a single point.

I have never been able to understand why the origin of the visible Universe can be viewed from every direction, unless I am at it's center.

Is Earth the center of the Universe?

42 posted on 09/24/2004 10:17:39 AM PDT by Hunble
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To: Lancey Howard
Inflationary theory. More codswallop, but the prevailing theory right now.

Wake me up when they figure out that there was no "big bang" and that the universe has built in recycling mechanisms and that their observed "limits" are like a man who has lived his entire life in a fog bank. He can only see so far and thinks that that is as far as anything exists.

And for the creationists... not even gonna go there.

43 posted on 09/24/2004 10:18:40 AM PDT by Dead Corpse (Albanian: O Zot! Kam sakice ne koke!)
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To: Michael_Michaelangelo

Here's a doozie for you...ponder this...

What if God used a big bang to create the universe!

:)

What if God spoke, and BANG! There was a universe!


44 posted on 09/24/2004 10:19:09 AM PDT by melbell
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To: Lancey Howard
The graphic has the "big bang" way, way out there past the edge of the sphere.

Think not in terms of physical distance, but in terms of time.
We can't look back in time at nearby objects - the light we see comes from a short time ago.
Faraway objects (in any direction) are farther back in time, due to the finite speed of light.
The farthest you could possibly see would also be the oldest.

45 posted on 09/24/2004 10:23:48 AM PDT by Izzy Dunne (Hello, I'm a TAGLINE virus. Please help me spread by copying me into YOUR tag line.)
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To: Hunble
I have never been able to understand why the origin of the visible Universe can be viewed from every direction, unless I am at it's center.

Is Earth the center of the Universe?


What if living in the universe was similar to living on the surface of a balloon? Our universe got bigger as the balloon expands. Everything looks like it is exapanding away from us, but we are not in the center of it.
46 posted on 09/24/2004 10:24:36 AM PDT by BikerNYC
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To: melbell
I guess anything is possible. Considering that some theory's allege that the entire universe took up an area that could have been put on the head of pin, prior to the big bang.
47 posted on 09/24/2004 10:25:20 AM PDT by Joe Hadenuf (I failed anger management class, they decided to give me a passing grade anyway)
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To: Hunble
can anyone explain to me why this is a problem?

No. But the model needs to be modified every time there is a new observation. I am wondering if there is a kind of delayed-choice phenomenon happening as there is in quantum mechanics.

48 posted on 09/24/2004 10:25:51 AM PDT by RightWhale (Withdraw from the 1967 UN Outer Space Treaty and establish property rights)
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To: Michael_Michaelangelo
The Word that was with God spoke, and universe came into existance, Adam create as man (not child), stars millions of light years away already visible to his eye during the cool of the night. Yes, Creation is just that, a creation, instant, beautiful, without understanding. Science can only reveal the Creator, nothing more ... Glory be to God in the Highest...

Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders. 12In a loud voice they sang: "Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise!"
49 posted on 09/24/2004 10:26:34 AM PDT by Scythian
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To: BikerNYC
Ok, what if I was living on the surface of a balloon?

Would it not be like living on the Earth? There is a horizon where the surface of the Earth curves away. There is also an up and down (sky and ground) that is very different from anything else.

Even living on the surface of a balloon, I would never be able to view the sky as equal in every direction.

50 posted on 09/24/2004 10:30:40 AM PDT by Hunble
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To: Hunble
I have never been able to understand why the origin of the visible Universe can be viewed from every direction, unless I am at it's center.

It's a mind bender, no doubt.

Is Earth the center of the Universe?

Just a guess, but I'd say there is no center. Imagine a piece of string with one no ends. It's really impossible for the mind to see.

51 posted on 09/24/2004 10:31:04 AM PDT by Joe Hadenuf (I failed anger management class, they decided to give me a passing grade anyway)
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To: RadioAstronomer
"Nope. It is pure drivel."

Care to expand on that?

52 posted on 09/24/2004 10:31:36 AM PDT by nightdriver
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To: Joe Hadenuf

Er, Just a guess, but I'd say there is no center. Imagine a piece of string with *no* ends. It's really impossible for the mind to see.


53 posted on 09/24/2004 10:32:25 AM PDT by Joe Hadenuf (I failed anger management class, they decided to give me a passing grade anyway)
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To: Hunble
If, for instance, I was in a tiny space-ship located on the surface of the first Atomic bomb.

You were inside the bomb. There is nothing outside the bomb you are capable of observing. From your perspective, things were really hot at first, and have been gradually cooling down. Your observable universe is expanding.

You can't see the horizon of the shockwave because you are inside it.

54 posted on 09/24/2004 10:39:09 AM PDT by hopespringseternal
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To: hopespringseternal
Then, by your theory, I must have been located at the center. If not, then the physics and observations simply could not work.

How convenient and "special".....

55 posted on 09/24/2004 10:42:28 AM PDT by Hunble
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To: hopespringseternal
Another example often used is: You are a raisen inside of bread. As the dough expands, the raisins will distance themselves from each other.

Nice example, but even a raisin could detect center and the outer edge of the expanding bread dough.

Why? Because the center will not move in relation to all other objects, and anything beyond the edge can not be viewed.

There is something seriously wrong with our current mathematical view of the Universe.

56 posted on 09/24/2004 10:48:10 AM PDT by Hunble
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To: Michael_Michaelangelo
" where are all the stars?"

The universe has to end somewhere?

Doesn't it?

They are looking at the end of the universe. Very simple.

57 posted on 09/24/2004 10:51:17 AM PDT by auggy (http://home.bellsouth.net/p/PWP-DownhomeKY /// Check out My USA Photo album & Fat Files)
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To: Michael_Michaelangelo

And for no apparent reason a large explosion took place where there was no time, space, light or explosive material.

This "Bang" created the material necessary for star formation, along with gravity, dark matter, and some substance that is, according to present day belief anti-gravity. Then the stars started to super nova and created the material of life, for no apparent reason except they were there.

This chaotic mass was melded into galaxies that are rushing at ever-greater speeds away from each other, except those that are moving toward each other and will collide.

Isaac Asimov put forth the theory that there must be millions of planets that have intelligent life. However, new theories are being put forward that we live on a Cinderella planet that is in the right orbit, at the right distance from a sun that is outside the highly radioactive part of the galaxy, with a moving radioactive crust, a protective magnetosphere, with liquid water and a moon that holds it all together which would require the same level of chance to reproduce itself in some other solar system.

Asimov however, in all of his sci-fi stories committed to the populating of the universe by immigration from earth.


58 posted on 09/24/2004 10:57:40 AM PDT by YOUGOTIT
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To: Hunble
There is something seriously wrong with our current mathematical view of the Universe.

With all due respect, the fact that you're having trouble visualizing it doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with the model. It means that there's something wrong with your understanding of it.

59 posted on 09/24/2004 10:58:06 AM PDT by Ichneumon ("...she might as well have been a space alien." - Bill Clinton, on Hillary, "My Life", p. 182)
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To: Michael_Michaelangelo

What if they found they had a picture of the back side of the Hubble?


60 posted on 09/24/2004 11:00:51 AM PDT by TC Rider (The United States Constitution © 1791. All Rights Reserved.)
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