By QMI Agency
Hubble captures earliest image of the universe


The Hubble Space Telescope has revealed the earliest and deepest image of the universe to date.

The image provided by NASA catches the universe just 600 million years after the Big Bang.


This undated handout photo provided by NASA, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, shows a snapshot of when the universe was just a toddler, 600 million years after the Big Bang, the earliest image yet. (AP/NASA)

Scientists released the photo on Tuesday at a press conference in Washington D.C., which reveals three newly-identified galaxies all compact and glowing a bright blue. Astronomers estimate that these galaxies are approximately 13.2 billion light years away – when the universe was only four per cent of its current age.

But in order to see galaxies from earlier times, NASA will have to rely on a new observatory – the James Webb telescope which is expected to launch in about four years and cost $4.5 billion.

“We are on the way to the beginning,” astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson of the American Museum of Natural History told The Associated Press.

“Every step closer to the beginning tells you something you did not know before.”

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Science/2010/01/05/12356396-qmi.html

Cool, sure glad they decided to give it more life.

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Official Abuser of Boinc Buttons...
And no good credit hound!

The universe did and is also now expanding at a speed greater than the speed of light.

[quoteBut now there still is a bit that puzzles me. The universe is expanding, for the time being at least. I’d figure, that 600 million to 800 million years after the Big Bang it couldn’t possibly have had a radius of more than the same amount of light years—and for material objects, less. So, how come images of galaxies as they were 13 billion years ago only reach us now?[/quote]
Its really quite simple, but not something we see in everyday life.
Yes, when the light was emitted it wasn't 13 billion LY away from us. However in the all the years in the mean time, new space was inserted in between us and the light source. That is what expansion is. So it not only had to cover the short distance between us when it started, but also all the new universe that grew up between in the the mean time. Oh and that also means the thing that started the light may now be outside our observable universe!

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... But now there still is a bit that puzzles me. The universe is expanding, for the time being at least. I’d figure, that 600 million to 800 million years after the Big Bang it couldn’t possibly have had a radius of more than the same amount of light years—and for material objects, less. So, how come images of galaxies as they were 13 billion years ago only reach us now?...

The theory goes:

Early on, our universe went through a very brief period of "hyperinflation" where it was expanding faster than the speed of light. Since then, it has been gradually slowing down to its present rate of expansion that is now lower than the speed of light.

Hence, the radiation from sources since the hyperinflation period can now catch us up.

Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, and Stephen Hawkins and others, offer some very good comments about this.

Keep searchin',
Martin

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Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

... expanding faster than the speed of light.

Does this mean that the universal speed limit of 'c' was suspending during the period of hyperinflation? Sort of a rhetorical question but it's obvious that I also do not understand clearly.

I had also remembered hearing recently about data suggesting that expansion rates throughout the universe are increasing ... leading some to believe that the expansion might continue until all energy and particles in the universe decays.

Looking that far back in time, is it possible that what we are seeing isn't really there anymore? ... That in fact, what we are seeing near the birth of our universe is actually the same 'stuff' that has now become 'us' and all of the more nearby galaxies?

I don't understand how hyperinflation could cause things to move more rapidly than light ... maybe there is an 'instantaneous' medium ... still doing homework here ... I'll probably never understand it but, I shouldn't stop trying!

I've read that a new NASA satellite will calibrate the stars' real luminosity. Since some of them are used as "standard candles" even in faraway galaxies our view of the Universe might change so to eliminate the need for "dark energy" and "dark matter" to explain its expansion speed.
Tullio

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Since the density of mass per unit of space is decreasing due to the expansion of space. The inward pull (retardation) due to gravity is also decreasing hence the expansion is accelerating in speed.

Conventional wisdom is that the initial period of inflation did expand the universe very rapidly but then gravity began to slow down the rate of expansion until about 5 billion years ago when the gravity force became weaker than the force which is causing the expansion. All very fuzzy when you realize that gravity is not a force but a geodesic in a warped Space-time.

Sometimes I find it easier to make sense of it if I think of the "tired light" theory of Fritz Zwicky as a cause of the redshift. Another amatuer thought that I like to mull over is that the universe is spinning about some center and the expansion is nothing more than centrifugal force.

I don't understand how hyperinflation could cause things to move more rapidly than light ... maybe there is an 'instantaneous' medium ... still doing homework here ... I'll probably never understand it but, I shouldn't stop trying!

It can be hard to get your head around the central concept but here is the 'leap of imagination' part: the universe isn't expanding into anything, it is just expanding.

The 'c' speed limit is a limit within the universe and, so far as we know, it is absolute. Many people imagine that there is some infinately vast void that the universe expands into but that is not really correct. The universe just expands, there is no 'outside' it creats space as it expands but there is no 'outside' thus, no speed limits.

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Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas.

Albert Einstein

... the universe isn't expanding into anything, it is just expanding.

I'll see if I can grasp the concept while I expand my mind and spirit a bit by enjoying parts of the Winter Olympics. It's a lot to understand ... thanks everyone.

Re: Looking back in time..

Here's my question/thoughts on that..

If there was a big bang, then you must think of the universe as having a center point from which the expansion is occuring.

Therefore, each galaxy has some other galaxy that is expanding in a similarly opposite direction from the central point.

That to me is the only way you can look "back in time." If during a period of hyperinflation.. the gas and simple elements that would eventually make up our galaxy went one way faster than the speed of light, while another set went in the exact opposite direction faster than the speed of light.

Eventually they both slow down, and the light from the opposite object must backtrack where it just went across the center and then travel to your location. And you would then at that point see back in time. But once that light is past you, you lose that moment in time and only keep moving forward from that point.

What that would imply though.. is that this image in this thread showing a distance of 13.4 billion light years away is only the early expansion on the opposite side of the expansion from the center. (the core of the big bang)

And thus at this real point in time, those objects may be in fact more like 26 billions light years from us today.

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Great video Phil.

The problem is that I'm starting to have serious problems with the hype that is being feed to us by our Astronomers as to how the Universe came into existence. There are way too many contradictions. When so called experts start talking out of both sides of the mouth you know they are full of it and haven't got a clue. IE. Nothing can travel faster than light but the Universe expanded faster than light. The light final caught up to us because the Universe's expansion has slowed down. Then why are they saying that the expansion rate is increasing???? Etc. etc.

When you look at the picture/video of the so called Universe 500 - 600 million years after creation, it looks exactly like the Universe in our neck of the Universe. Millions of spiral and globular galaxies with lots of space between them. I don't know about you, but that makes absolutely no sense what so ever. So far as I'm concerned, their Big Bang theory is as about as valid as the old Flat Earth and the Earth is the center of the Universe theories. Both of which have been proven wrong.

These guys had better stop smoking pot and get out of the closet and start talking to other branches of science for some major help. Enough of this voodoo science.

Franz

Re: Looking back in time..

Here's my question/thoughts on that..

If there was a big bang, then you must think of the universe as having a center point from which the expansion is occuring.

Isn't that one of the problems, no matter where scientists look, the Universe seems to be expanding, in all directions at the same rate?

Maybe Hubble isn't seeing "the edge" of the Universe, maybe it is just seeing the cosmological Horizon? The cosmological Horizon would work in a similar fashion as the celestial horizon on Earth. You can't see beyond (below) it, but if you change your location on Earth's surface, there's more to see. Similarly, if Earth were transported a billion ly's in any direction, the cosmological Horizon would still be there, 13 billion ly's away in all directions. A billion ly's of 'new' space would come into view, and in the opposite direction of our relocation, a billion ly's of space would disappear from view beyond the cosmological Horizon.

Martin

Re: Looking back in time..

Here's my question/thoughts on that..

If there was a big bang, then you must think of the universe as having a center point from which the expansion is occuring.

Isn't that one of the problems, no matter where scientists look, the Universe seems to be expanding, in all directions at the same rate?

Right, which to me only has 2 explanations;

1) we are viewing the universe from near the center of expansion. which i don't think is possible.

2) Einstein was right after all. There's an unknown force in the universe greater than gravity acting opposite gravity.

This unknown force simply could not be acting from a center point.. it can not be coming from a single point in space. Otherwise the expansion would not be uniform.

I personally think of the universe as being inside a giant sphere that is growing. The inner surface of that sphere is magnetic. And galaxies are like tiny little metal beeds inside all being pulled towards the surface.

I believe this type of expansion would look uniform in all directions. As no matter where you are inside the sphere.. from your viewpoint, you would appear to be at the center of expansion.

My theory is that the force expanding the universe, is coming from outside it and is surrounding it.

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Yesterday, I read in a PBS ad:

1) The universe has no center

2) The universe has no edge

I might guess, the universe just is

Not so easy for me to comprehend

Not so easy for me to comprehend

Not surprising: People are good at understanding medium sized things (from the size of a grain of sand to a galactic cluster) but really big things, like the universe, or really small things, like elementary particles, are so far outside normal human experience that the mind struggles with them.

The universe is not under any obligation to adhere to the human concept of common sense.

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Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas.

Albert Einstein

Yesterday, I read in a PBS ad:

1) The universe has no center

2) The universe has no edge

I might guess, the universe just is

That is pretty much is how it is.

Now the observable universe is a bit different. It is special because it can be observed. Because of that it has an edge and a center. The center being you. Now I'm not where you are so I have a different universe than you do. They mostly overlap.

Are we having fun yet?

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Are we having fun yet?

yep ... of course, it's all sort of relative

i'm glad the universe isn't subject to our human whims and misconceptions!

it just seems to work at all scales in strange and often wondrous ways

I'm personally inclined to believe in a variation of the steady state theory, with localized expansions and contractions - no original big bang to start everything off. This may be similar to to the multiverse conception.

Why?

I find it difficult to think of nothingness (in a literal sense) - no before, no outside. And much easier to think of the infinite (in all directions) - in time and space, which of course has it's own set of philosophical and real problems.

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Join TeamACC

Sometimes I think we are alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we are not. In either case the idea is quite staggering.