No Distance too great for the Hubble!

[Amenhotep7]

Hubble Images Show Deepest Universe View

BALTIMORE (March 9) - Astronomers at the Space Telescope Science Institute released the deepest-ever view of the universe Tuesday, a long-duration exposure that reached out to a point just a few hundred million years from the Big Bang.

Officials said the Hubble image contains an estimated 10,000 galaxies, and astronomers around the world will now search in this field of view for the most distant objects known.

Steven V. W. Beckwith, director of the institute, said the long-duration exposure by the orbiting space telescope collected light that has been streaking through space for more than 13 billion years and started its journey when the universe was only 5 percent of its present age, believed to be about 13.7 billion years.

"For the first time, we're looking back at stars that are forming out of the depths of the Big Bang," Beckwith said. "We're seeing the youngest stars within a stone's throw of the beginning of the universe."

The images were collected by focusing the Hubble's instruments at a single point in the sky for 1 million seconds, an exposure that took more than 400 orbits of the space telescope.

Beckwith said finding the faintest objects in the long-term exposure, called the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, is like trying to collect the light from a firefly hovering over the moon.

The images were collected over four months starting last September.

The portion in the sky imaged by the Hubble was very small and astronomers compared it to looking at the sky through an 8-foot long soda straw.

Researchers will now take the images and search for the most distant objects and study the 10,000 galaxies, some of which are in bizarre and unusual shapes.

The Big Bang theory holds that the universe started with an immense explosion and that the universe then cooled and became a place of darkness, lacking stars and galaxies.

About 300 million years after the Big Bang, stars and galaxies began to form and that would be the limit of the physical universe.

Probing that frontier must await a larger telescope, which NASA plans to launch in 2011. That instrument, called the James Webb Telescope, is expected to reach to the very edge of the dark ages.

Researchers at the institute say a quick look at the ultra-deep first images shows a wide range of galaxies in different sizes, shapes and colors. Many of them seem to be interacting with their gravitations, attracting and ripping each other apart and forming strange shapes.

Astronomers said at the time these galaxies are imaged, the universe was much smaller and the galaxies were much closer together, thus causing chaotic collisions and changes in galactic structure.

Wonderful news! I wonder if we can gain more knowledge from this, like know more about how the universe began!

GOOD JOB, HUBBLE![dance]

 

[Kinniken]

This telescope is incredible! The amount of science that can be made from it is truly amazing... 100 the science of the ISS, a fraction of the cost. Keep it running!

 

[betazed]

Here is the actual image



and some details magnified.



You can see galaxied of all shapes and sizes.

 

[Civrules]

This truly is prodigious!

 

[RoddyVR]

looks like the backround for the Galactic Civilizations map.

why dont they study that and use the hubble for something usefull. like looking directly at the sun.

seriously, i hope that the stuff that the hubble gets is a bit more detailed then that immage, cause that particular immage is useless by ANY measurement.

 

[De Lorimier]

I know this is off-topic and I apologize ahead of time but here it comes: How can anyone not believe in the slight chance of life outside of the Milky Way? These pictures are just amazing!

 

[Civrules]

Originally posted by RoddyVR
looks like the backround for the Galactic Civilizations map.

why dont they study that and use the hubble for something usefull. like looking directly at the sun.

seriously, i hope that the stuff that the hubble gets is a bit more detailed then that immage, cause that particular immage is useless by ANY measurement.

How can it get a more detailed image if it is already almost to its limit?

 

[RoddyVR]

i mean i hope that the pictures its taking at its limit are actualy much more detailed then the posted/publicised ones.
and that being its limit is specificaly because going farther would make pictures that are useless for anything other then cool pictures to make posters from.

how many scientist could it realy take to study up that posted pic up there. i mean you could assign one to each pixel and still have some left over.

 

[Kinniken]

Originally posted by RoddyVR
why dont they study that and use the hubble for something usefull. like looking directly at the sun.

Since the Hubble was made to observe the farthest reaches of space, I do not believe this would be a very smart thing to do... It would probably destroy quite a few instruments
And why do you consider observing the sun more "useful" than observing far away galaxies?

Originally posted by RoddyVR
seriously, i hope that the stuff that the hubble gets is a bit more detailed then that immage, cause that particular immage is useless by ANY measurement.

The picture in question is only a "pretty" version of the scientific data they collected, and it's already amazing! And judging from the number of physicians who are drooling over that new set of data, calling it "useless" seems quite a stretch...

 

[Beam]

Keep in mind that the small darkred dots are the ones representing the most distant galaxies. The Nasa website hosts a number of animations including a zoom from the overall pic to a very deep level of detail. Recommended for Broadband only.

No full-res pic yet unfortunately

 

[Perfection]

Originally posted by RoddyVR
seriously, i hope that the stuff that the hubble gets is a bit more detailed then that immage, cause that particular immage is useless by ANY measurement.

Take a closer look! You can see a massive amount of unusual shapes and collisions. It's fascinating to see the level of galactic activity, you can see a frenzy of activity here, it's a very dynamic state!

I'll bet they can get a whole lot of insight looking at these pictures!

Horray for the Hubble!

 

[sw99]

Yep, thats just a media friendly version of the pic, the actual data wouldn't fit on 10 average pc's I bet.

As fascinated as I am by each breakthrough in space observation, actually thinking about the vastness and impossible size of the universe makes me feel extremely small lol.

It's nuts that we're taking pictures of what distant galaxies looked like 13 BILLION years ago....

 

[Civrules]

*SIGH*

Just the thought that someone could be watching us like that and wondering whether something is there...

 

[Laughing Gull]

I thought the Deep Field pics were old news

 

[Xen]

on eownders why they just dont keep it traenind in one area for over a year, and see just how far back the maximum they can see is