Milky Way's Galactic Ancestors Found
"Finding these objects and discovering that they are a step in the
evolution of our galaxy is akin to finding a key fossil in the path of
human evolution."
Eric Gawiser, astronomer, Rutgers University.
Astronomers have discovered galaxies in the distant universe that are ancestors of spiral galaxies like the Milky Way.
The tiny galaxies are about one-tenth to one-twentieth the size of the Milky Way and have 40 times fewer stars. Light from the ancient clusters was emitted about 2 billion years after the Big Bang, the theoretical beginning to the universe that occurred about 13.7 billion years ago. So the galaxies are seen as they existed in a very young universe.
The galaxies are not the most distant seen by the Hubble Space
Telescope, but astronomers consider them to be the best evidence of
precursors to larger, spiral structures such as the Milky Way.
The team led by Caryl Gronwall, an astrophysicist at Pennsylvania State University and Gawiser determined that these galaxies were fertile breeding grounds for new stars, which burned hot and bright. These stars ionized the hydrogen atoms around them, stripping them of their electrons and causing them to emit a tell-tale sharp band of ultraviolet light known as Lyman alpha. The researchers also noted that several of these galaxies, sometimes 10 or more, pulled together over the ensuing few billion years to form a single spiral galaxy.
"The Hubble Space Telescope has delivered striking images of these
early galaxies, with 10 times the resolution of ground-based
telescopes," Gronwall said. "They come in a variety of shapes -- round,
oblong, and even somewhat linear -- and we are starting to make precise
measurements of their sizes."
"We knew by our understanding of cosmological theory that spiral galaxies had to evolve from low-mass galaxies such as these," Gawiser said. "The challenge was to actually find them. We'd seen other early universe galaxies, but they were bigger and destined to evolve into elliptical galaxies, not spirals."
The astronomers undertook four types of observations to find and characterize the objects they were seeking.
They performed the first step -- actually finding amid all the
visible objects of deep space those galaxies that emit ultraviolet
light in the Lyman-alpha range -- using the Blanco four-meter telescope
at the National Science Foundation's Cerro Tololo Inter-American
Observatory in Chile.
To measure their distance, they used the Magellan Telescope at Las
Campanas Observatory, also in Chile, to measure redshift -- an effect
that shows how fast an object is receding from view due to a rapidly
expanding universe.
To determine how many stars are in the galaxies, they used the NASA Spitzer Space Telescope's Infrared Array Camera.
To determine how big the galaxies are, they used the NASA Hubble Space Telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys.
"Astronomy has long used a model where big surveys are followed by detailed studies of the interesting objects they find," said Nigel Sharp, program officer in NSF's Division of Astronomical Sciences. "This work nicely couples the large-area, wide-field view of our ground-based telescope with the sharp focus of the Hubble to probe to the faintest light levels.This team has come the closest yet to finding young galaxies that resemble our own Milky Way in its infancy."
Posted by Casey Kazan. Adapted from a Penn State University release.
http://live.psu.edu/story/27975
Milky Way’s Ancestors
“Light from the ancient clusters was emitted about 2 billion years after the Big Bang, the theoretical beginning to the universe that occurred about 13.7 billion years ago”.
Once you start with this invariable truth, then the rest of your narrative has to conform to the straightjacket of this truth. If it does not, then you have to fudge the narrative to fit to your premise, no matter how tenuous the logic is!
"We knew by our understanding of cosmological theory that spiral galaxies had to evolve from low-mass galaxies such as these," Gawiser said. "The challenge was to actually find them. We'd seen other early universe galaxies, but they were bigger and destined to evolve into elliptical galaxies, not spirals."
So, galaxies, nature or anything else in this universe has only extension in space, but no development or change in time, after the good lord made them each “perfect in themselves” and gave them the “first impulse”!!! They can only replicate in number or die away; but never evolve into something else? If the spirals grew in size by merger or collision – the only mechanism available under Big Bang paradigm; then there were no distortion, mangling etc. when “several of these galaxies, sometimes 10 or more, pulled together over the ensuing few billion years to form a single spiral galaxy” and retained their God given perfect ness for billions of further more years!! Even the lowly myth of “Genesis” does a much better job than this Holy “Science”!!
For an exact opposite view refer to the following:
http://redshift.vif.com/JournalFiles/V12NO2PDF/V12N2MAL.pdf
Abdul Malek
Posted by: Abdul Malek | May 18, 2008 at 10:52 PM
Milky Way’s Ancestors
“Light from the ancient clusters was emitted about 2 billion years after the Big Bang, the theoretical beginning to the universe that occurred about 13.7 billion years ago”.
Once you start with this invariable truth, then the rest of your narrative has to conform to the straightjacket of this truth. If it does not, then you have to fudge the narrative to fit to your premise, no matter how tenuous the logic is!
"We knew by our understanding of cosmological theory that spiral galaxies had to evolve from low-mass galaxies such as these," Gawiser said. "The challenge was to actually find them. We'd seen other early universe galaxies, but they were bigger and destined to evolve into elliptical galaxies, not spirals."
So, galaxies, nature or anything else in this universe has only extension in space, but no development or change in time, after the good lord made them each “perfect in themselves” and gave them the “first impulse”!!! They can only replicate in number or die away; but never evolve into something else? If the spirals grew in size by merger or collision – the only mechanism available under Big Bang paradigm; then there were no distortion, mangling etc. when “several of these galaxies, sometimes 10 or more, pulled together over the ensuing few billion years to form a single spiral galaxy” and retained their God given perfect ness for billions of further more years!! Even the lowly myth of “Genesis” does a much better job than this Holy “Science”!!
For an exact opposite view refer to the following:
http://redshift.vif.com/JournalFiles/V12NO2PDF/V12N2MAL.pdf
Abdul Malek
Posted by: Abdul Malek | May 18, 2008 at 10:53 PM
Dear moderator,Sorry for the double posting. It was not intended, but do not know how it happened. Please remove one. Thanks, Abdul Malek
Posted by: Abdul Malek | May 18, 2008 at 11:26 PM