Posted on 05/17/2009 3:52:36 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
A newly found primordial blob may represent the most massive object ever discovered in the early universe, researchers announced today.
The gas cloud, spotted from 12.9 billion light-years away, could signal the earliest stages of galaxy formation back when the universe was just 800 million years old.
"I have never heard about any [similar] objects that could be resolved at this distance," said Masami Ouchi, a researcher at the Carnegie Institution in Pasadena, Calif. "It's kind of record-breaking."
A light-year is the distance light travels in a year, about 6 trillion miles (10 trillion kilometers). An object 12.9 billion light-years away is seen as it existed 12.9 billion years ago, and the light is just now arriving.
The cloud predates similar blobs, known as Lyman-Alpha blobs, which existed when the universe was 2 billion to 3 billion years old. Researchers named their new find Himiko, after an ancient Japanese queen with an equally murky past.
Himiko holds more than 10 times as much mass as the next largest object found in the early universe, or roughly the equivalent mass of 40 billion suns. At 55,000 light years across, it spans about half the diameter of our Milky Way Galaxy.
Lyman-Alpha blobs remain a mystery because existing telescopes have a hard time peering so far back to nearly the dawn of the universe.
Himiko sits right on the doorstep of an era called the reionization epoch, which lasted between 200 million and 1 billion years after the Big Bang. That's when the universe had just emerged from its cosmic dark ages and had begun brightening through the formation of stars and galaxies. Hot, energized hydrogen gas from that time period has allowed astronomers to begin seeing some objects — as much good as it does to squint at such fuzzy blobs.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
This handout image courtesy of the Carnegie Institution For Science shows the Himiko object, in a composite and in false color. Astronomers announced the discovery of a massive and mysterious gas blob of the type that can be precursors to galaxies, which they dubbed Himiko. (AFP/Carnegie/M.Ouchi)
I already know where this one is headed.....
So it’s not Michael Moore!
I figgured Helen Thomas, Hillary or Pelosi...looks like Helen is FIRST up...
Helen was the prohibitive favorite.....
errr... did Godzilla leave a “calling - card” behind?
Probably dinosaur farts that drifted off the planet when the atmosphere was very thin. Don’t forget, there were trillions of dinosaurs farting during early earth times, so they must have created huge clouds of methane. Then they all died, falling in to huge pits that held 500 billion dinosaurs each, which is the size of the average Saudi oil field today.
I don’t know Godzilla is pretty old remember our nuke bombs revived him he was about 1,000 years or more now this is 2009 so multiple that
Out of respect I will forgo the obligatory Teddy Kennedy photo...
well that is a long time between BMs.
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Giant Mystery Blob of Interest Ping
I went to college for Physics and I STILL cannot understand how they can capture an image and say it is from 12 billion light years ago.
I mean, That object did not suddenly form 12billion years ago and we suddenly see it flash into existance, why are we seeing a distinct image- not schmeered o all over the place as the thing moved and morphed over the NEXT couple billion years?
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