bright birth of new baby galaxy
Bright birth of new baby galaxy
Telescope pictures suggest ‘hotbed’
JAMES REYNOLDS SCIENCE CORRESPONDENT
FIRM evidence that our universe is still forming has been obtained by an orbiting NASA telescope which has revealed what appears to be massive new galaxies.
NASA’s Galaxy Evolution Explorer has been scanning the heavens in our corner of the universe since its launch in April last year but had found nothing of interest, until now.
The discovery has excited astronomers because it runs contrary to the established belief that only small new galaxies are being formed by the ageing universe.
Dr Chris Martin, the principal investigator for the telescope mission at the California Institute of Technology, said: "We knew there were really massive young galaxies aeons ago but thought they had all matured into older ones more like our Milky Way. If these galaxies are indeed newly formed, then this implies parts of the universe are still hotbeds of galaxy birth."
Together with colleagues at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Dr Martin uncovered three dozen bright, compact galaxies that greatly resemble the youthful ones of more than ten billion years ago.
While any measurement of space time is difficult to comprehend relative to human life-span, the new galaxies are considered to be relatively young - between 100 million and one billion years old. Our own Milky Way is ten billion years old.
The "baby" galaxies are also close to home compared to other galaxies in the universe - ranging from two to four billion light years away. Light travels at a speed of 186,282 miles per second, and a light year is the total distance which light travels in one year.
The discovery suggests that our ageing universe is actually still in the first flush of its youth and offers astronomers their first close-up glimpse of what our galaxy probably looked like in its infancy.
Dr Tim Heckman, of the Baltimore research team, said: "Now we can study the ancestors to galaxies much like our Milky Way in much more detail than ever before. It’s like finding a living fossil in your own backyard.
"We thought this type of galaxy had gone extinct but in fact newborn galaxies are alive and well in the universe."
The discoveries are of a type called ultraviolet luminous galaxies, and were found after the Galaxy Evolution Explorer scanned a large portion of sky with its highly sensitive ultraviolet light detectors.
The Galaxy Evolution Explorer is an orbiting space telescope that makes observations at ultraviolet wavelengths to measure the history of star formation in the universe 80 per cent of the way back to the Big Bang.
Since scientists believe the universe is about 13 billion years old, the mission will study galaxies and stars across about ten billion years of cosmic history.
UK telescope captures images of new stars
STUNNING pictures of blazing young stars in the constellation of Orion have been obtained by a British telescope equipped with the world’s most powerful infrared camera.
The United Kingdom Infrared Telescope (UKIRT) has just started operating on the Hawaiian mountain of Mauna Kea, using its new Wide Field Camera (WFCAM).
Built at the UK Astronomy Technology Centre in Edinburgh, the WFCAM has a larger field of view than any other astronomical infrared camera in the world.
As part of its commissioning, WFCAM was trained on a region of star formation in the Orion constellation, about 1,500 light years away.
Gary David, the director of the Joint Astronomy Centre, which operates the UKIRT, said: "These images are a testament to the hard work of everyone involved, and we now look forward to several years of exciting discoveries."
