Random or Designed Universe: Are Humans Real?

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Hubble eXtreme Deep Field: a new, improved portrait of mankind's deepest-ever view of the Universe

Cosmologist Martin Rees explores and discusses the Universe and asks questions such do we live in a random or designed Universe, where did we come from, where are we going, and what is the nature of reality?

Humans are the most complex organism we know of in the Universe. Remarkably, atoms have been able to assemble into entities, i.e. humans, "which somehow have been able to ponder their origins".

The human understanding of reality, of the Universe, began with religion and a Creator. As science progressed a random, not a designed, Universe seemed probable. Now a simulated reality, a virtual Universe, may be the true reality which implies a Creator once again.

What We Still Don't Know: "Are We Real?"

Chapter 1: In which the cosmologists learn that we were no accident waiting to happen (3:27)
Chapter 2: In which the cosmologists find that just one suit fits (16:38)
Chapter 3: In which the cosmologists find that they are not the most intelligent things in our Universe, or in others (27:57)
Chapter 4: In which the cosmologists learn that their suits are knock-offs (40:55)

Series from Channel 4 featuring Sir Martin Rees. There is a fundamental chasm in our understanding of ourselves, the universe, and everything. To solve this, Sir Martin takes us on a mind-boggling journey through multiple universes to post-biological life. On the way we learn of the disturbing possibility that we could be the product of someone else's experiment.





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Michio Kaku: Physics, Science, The Universe

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Michio Kaku

Michio Kaku provides a fast 42-minute review of physics, science, and the Universe. Though a quick history and primer, Kaku is entertaining and adds his learned perspective.

Michio Kaku: The Universe in a Nutshell

The Universe in a Nutshell: The Physics of Everything Michio Kaku, Henry Semat Professor of Theoretical Physics at CUNY




Hubble eXtreme Deep Field: a new, improved portrait of mankind's deepest-ever view of the Universe

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Most Distant Galaxy Observed by Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes

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The newly discovered galaxy, named MACS0647-JD, is very young and only a tiny fraction of the size of our Milky Way.

NASA's Great Observatories Find Candidate for Most Distant Galaxy

WASHINGTON -- By combining the power of NASA's Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes and one of nature's own natural "zoom lenses" in space, astronomers have set a new record for finding the most distant galaxy seen in the universe.

The farthest galaxy appears as a diminutive blob that is only a tiny fraction of the size of our Milky Way galaxy. But it offers a peek back into a time when the universe was 3 percent of its present age of 13.7 billion years. The newly discovered galaxy, named MACS0647-JD, was observed 420 million years after the Big Bang, the theorized beginning of the universe. Its light has traveled 13.3 billion years to reach Earth.

This find is the latest discovery from a program that uses natural zoom lenses to reveal distant galaxies in the early universe. The Cluster Lensing And Supernova Survey with Hubble (CLASH), an international group led by Marc Postman of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Md., is using massive galaxy clusters as cosmic telescopes to magnify distant galaxies behind them. This effect is called gravitational lensing.

Along the way, 8 billion years into its journey, light from MACS0647-JD took a detour along multiple paths around the massive galaxy cluster MACS J0647+7015. Without the cluster's magnification powers, astronomers would not have seen this remote galaxy. Because of gravitational lensing, the CLASH research team was able to observe three magnified images of MACS0647-JD with the Hubble telescope. The cluster's gravity boosted the light from the faraway galaxy, making the images appear about eight, seven, and two times brighter than they otherwise would that enabled astronomers to detect the galaxy more efficiently and with greater confidence.

"This cluster does what no manmade telescope can do," said Postman. "Without the magnification, it would require a Herculean effort to observe this galaxy."

MACS0647-JD is so small it may be in the first steps of forming a larger galaxy. An analysis shows the galaxy is less than 600 light-years wide. Based on observations of somewhat closer galaxies, astronomers estimate that a typical galaxy of a similar age should be about 2,000 light-years wide. For comparison, the Large Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf galaxy companion to the Milky Way, is 14,000 light-years wide. Our Milky Way is 150,000 light-years across.

"This object may be one of many building blocks of a galaxy," said the study's lead author, Dan Coe of the Space Telescope Science Institute. "Over the next 13 billion years, it may have dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of merging events with other galaxies and galaxy fragments."

Read More: NASA - NASA's Great Observatories Find Candidate for Most Distant Galaxy

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Development of a Galaxy: NASA Simulation Spans 13.5 Billion Years

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NGC 3344 is a glorious spiral galaxy around half the size of the Milky Way, which lies 25 million light-years distant. We are fortunate enough to see NGC 3344 face-on, allowing us to study its structure in detail.

NASA - Computer Model Shows a Disk Galaxy's Life History

This cosmological simulation follows the development of a single disk galaxy over about 13.5 billion years, from shortly after the Big Bang to the present time. Colors indicate old stars (red), young stars (white and bright blue) and the distribution of gas density (pale blue); the view is 300,000 light-years across.

The simulation ran on the Pleiades supercomputer at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., and required about 1 million CPU hours. It assumes a universe dominated by dark energy and dark matter. Credit: F. Governato and T. Quinn (Univ. of Washington), A. Brooks (Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison), and J. Wadsley (McMaster Univ.).



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Valles Marineris: Grandest Canyon in the Solar System

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Planet Mars: Valles Marineris

(European Space Agency; 22 October 2012) Earth’s Grand Canyon inspires awe for anyone who casts eyes upon the vast river-cut valley, but it would seem nothing more than a scratch next to the cavernous scar of Valles Marineris that marks the face of Mars.

Stretching over 4000 km long and 200 km wide, and with a dizzying depth of 10 km, it is some ten times longer and five times deeper than Earth’s Grand Canyon, a size that earns it the status of the largest canyon in the Solar System.



Seen here in new light and online for the first time, this bird’s-eye view of Valles Marineris was created from data captured during 20 individual orbits of ESA’s Mars Express. It is presented in near-true colour and with four times vertical exaggeration.

A wide variety of geological features can be seen, reflecting the complex geological history of the region. The canyon’s formation is likely intimately linked with the formation of the neighbouring Tharsis bulge, which is out of shot and to the left of this image and home to the largest volcano in the Solar System, Olympus Mons.

The volcanic activity is revealed by the nature of the rocks in the walls of the canyon and the surrounding plains, which were built by successive lava flows. As the Tharsis bulge swelled with magma during the planet’s first billion years, the surrounding crust was stretched, ripping apart and eventually collapsing into the gigantic troughs of Valles Marineris.

Intricate fault patterns have also developed due to the imposing extensional forces; the most recent are particularly evident in the middle portion of the image and along the lower boundary of the frame.

Landslides have also played a role in shaping the scene, especially in the northern-most troughs, where material has recently slumped down the steep walls. Mass wasting has also created delicate erosion of the highest part of the walls. Strong water flows may have reshaped Valles Marineris after it was formed, deepening the canyon. Mineralogical information collected by orbiting spacecraft, including Mars Express, shows that the terrain here was altered by water hundreds of millions of years ago.

Grandest Canyon

"Flight Into Mariner Valley" takes you on a virtual tour of Mars' Valles Marineris, narrated by Arizona State University planetary geologist Phil Christensen.

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The Ultimate Map: How Big Is The Universe?

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Universe Time Line

Our Universe consists of galaxies and galaxy clusters expanding at an accelerating rate in all directions connected by a cosmic web of gravity. Is there a boundary to the Universe and therefore to an ultimate map of the Universe? Is the Universe infinite in all directions?

Would a map of the Universe be the ultimate map created by humanity? Time will tell, but Anthony Aguirre has an even bigger idea. What if there are other Universes, even an infinity of Universes? Could these Universes ultimately be mapped in relation to our Universe and others? That would truly be the ultimate, and never-ending, map!

How Big Is The Universe? (BBC)

It is one of the most baffling questions that scientists can ask: how big is the Universe that we live in?

Horizon follows the cosmologists who are creating the most ambitious map in history - a map of everything in existence....

See more about the video here.



Temperature Map of the Measurable Universe: WMAP Full Sky 7 Years


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Hubble eXtreme Deep Field Team: Observing the Evolving Universe

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Hubble eXtreme Deep Field: a new, improved portrait of mankind's deepest-ever view of the Universe

Original Announcement => Farthest View Ever of the Universe: Hubble eXtreme Deep Field

Hubble Space Telescope: Deepest View Ever of the Universe

This is an extraordinary accomplishment and webinar. The public was invited to participate in a "Meet the Hubble eXtreme Deep Field Observing Team" webinar, where three key astronomers of the XDF observing team described how they assembled the landmark image and explained what it tells us about the evolving universe. The webinar begins at 4:00 in video below.

Ray Villard (STScI) introduced and moderated the panel. The team present were Garth Illingworth, Dan McGee, and Pascal Oesch, all from University of California Santa Cruz. Each presented background and procedures on the eXtreme Deep Field image. Some notable concepts, facts, and quotes are below the video.



Hubble eXtreme Deep Field: Some Notable Concepts, Facts, Quotes

Ultimately the search is for the first galaxies. XDF is key to understanding the origins of galaxies, the search for the first galaxies, when and how did galaxies form and grow, how the Milky Way and Andromeda formed.

Hubble is a time machine: XDF sees galaxies forming 13.2 billion years ago, 450 million years after the Big Bang, and sees back in time through 96% of the life of the Universe.

Galaxies earlier than 800 million years after the Big Bang can only be seen in infrared light. XDF reveals these galaxies unseen in deepest visible-light Hubble Utra Deep Field images.

Hubble is at its limit of detection, for finding any earlier galaxies (400 million years after the Big Bang). The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will discover the first galaxies and probably the first stars. The gain in efficiency and resolution will be a factor of 100 with the JWST and will be "astonishingly powerful". The project is working towards a 2018 launch date.

The Universe is basically the same in any direction, is symmetric. No asymmetries have been detected.

XDF is full of galaxies and there might be even more fainter galaxies beyond the image that cannot be currently seen. There are more galaxies, and fainter galaxies, in the image than expected beforehand. The Universe is full of tiny, little galaxies in the early times that are building up.

The numbers of galaxies, in redshift 12 to 15, is estimated to decrease. The number of galaxies probably increased around redshift 10. Beyond the redshift is the cosmic glow, the cosmic microwave background, from the Big Bang.

Very small gravitational lensing effect in XDF. Galaxy clusters and very large galaxies were avoided which cause this effect. There is tiny "weak lensing" effect in image.

The age of the galaxy images, particularly using powerful microwave telescopes, has been determined independently. Beyond the scope of the XDF to determine.

XDF is not designed to search for or detect dark energy or dark matter. Supernova searches originally detected dark energy. Galaxy cluster and weak lensing large-scale observations originally detected dark matter.

Deep in the XDF image, the early galaxies are smaller with more intense light and much closer together. The Universe was a tenth (1/10) if its size now. Presumably these galaxies would build up to larger current galaxies such as the Milky Way and Andromeda. The early galaxies are the seeds from which current galaxies evolved. These early galaxies grew, collided, merged in a very dynamic and dramatic process.

The cosmic microwave background was about 400,000 years after the Big Bang, very soon afterwards. The limit of the XDF is 400 million years after the Big Bang. Perhaps first galaxies formed about 150 to 200 million years after the Big Bang. Perhaps the first stars came together about 100 - 150 million years after the Big Bang. Before that were the Dark Ages. The first stars and galaxies ended the Dark Ages.

The earliest galaxies observed are moving away from each other as the Universe expands, increasingly separating from each other. A small fraction of these galaxies were pulled towards each other by gravity, if close enough. The example of the expanding balloon with dots on it...

XDF and Hubble cannot detect individual stars within the early galaxies. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) probably will not be able to either and therefore will not be able to detect the individual "first stars". The JWST will probably be able to detect early supernova, however.

XDF is really about galaxies and not about the formation of the Universe itself. A major change in the Universe occurred from about a few hundred million years to 900 million years after the Big Bang. The change from neutral hydrogen to ionized hydrogen in the Universe and within the XDF time frame was most likely caused by the galaxies. XDF will not add significantly to cosmology, however.

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Artificial Intelligence Maps the Universe: An Algorithm's View

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How does an algorithm view the Universe, if all the known variables are provided? Artificial intelligence can balance all these variables, crunch the simultaneous equations, much better than some top-tier, but outdated, hominid on a (much) slower biological platform.


(above) An image of a slice through the local universe, 370 million light years on each side. The red circles mark the positions of galaxies observed with the 2MRS survey which measured the positions and distances of over 45000 galaxies. The blue circles are random points (galaxies) inserted to smooth the map across the 'zone of avoidance' where nearby gas and dust in our Galaxy blocks the view of more distant objects. These data are superimposed on the light and dark background of the cosmic web of galaxies modelled by Kitaura et al using an artificial intelligence algorithm. Credit: Francisco Kitaura, Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics.

Using Artificial Intelligence to Chart the Universe

(Phys.org) Astronomers in Germany have developed an artificial intelligence algorithm to help them chart and explain the structure and dynamics of the universe around us with unprecedented accuracy. The team, led by Francisco Kitaura of the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics in Potsdam, report their results in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Scientists routinely use large telescopes to scan the sky, mapping the coordinates and estimating the distances of hundreds of thousands of galaxies and so enabling them to create a map of the large-scale structure of the Universe. But the distribution that astronomers see is intriguing and hard to explain, with galaxies forming a complex 'cosmic web' showing clusters, filaments connecting them, and large empty regions in between.

The driving force for such a rich structure is gravitation. This force originates from two components; firstly the 5% of the universe that appears to be made of 'normal' matter that makes up the stars, planets, dust and gas we can see and secondly the 23% made up of invisible 'dark' matter. Alongside these some 72% of the cosmos is made up of a mysterious 'dark energy' that rather than exerting a gravitational pull is thought to be responsible for accelerating the expansion of the universe. Together these three constituents are described in the Lambda Cold Dark Matter (LCDM) model for the cosmos, the starting point for the work of the Potsdam team.

Measurements of the residual heat from the Big Bang – the so-called Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation or CMBR emitted 13700 million years ago – allow astronomers to determine the motion of the Local Group, the cluster of galaxies that includes the Milky Way, the galaxy we live in. Astronomers try to reconcile this motion with that predicted by the distribution of matter around us and its associated gravitational force, but this is compromised by the difficulty of mapping the dark matter in the same region.

"Finding the dark matter distribution corresponding to a galaxy catalogue is like trying to make a geographical map of Europe from a satellite image during the night that only shows the light coming from dense populated areas", says Dr Kitaura.

To try to solve this problem he developed a new algorithm based on artificial intelligence (AI). It starts with the fluctuations in the density of the universe seen in the CMBR, then models the way that matter collapses into today's galaxies over the subsequent 13 billion years. The results of the AI algorithm are a close fit to the observed distribution and motion of galaxies.

Dr. Kitaura comments, "Our precise calculations show that the direction of motion and 80% of the speed of the galaxies that make up the Local Group can be explained by the gravitational forces that arise from matter up to 370 million light years away. In comparison the Andromeda Galaxy, the largest member of the Local Group, is a mere 2.5 million light years distant so we are seeing how the distribution of matter at great distances affects galaxies much closer to home.

'Our results are also in close agreement with the predictions of the LCDM model. To explain the rest of the 20% of the speed, we need to consider the influence of matter up to about 460 million light years away, but at the moment the data are less reliable at such a large distance.

'Despite this caveat, our model is a big step forward. With the help of AI, we can now model the universe around us with unprecedented accuracy and study how the largest structures in the cosmos came into being."


WMAP Full Sky 7 Years
(above) The detailed, all-sky picture of the infant universe created from seven years of WMAP data. The image reveals 13.7 billion year old temperature fluctuations (shown as color differences) that correspond to the seeds that grew to become the galaxies. The signal from the our Galaxy was subtracted using the multi-frequency data. This image shows a temperature range of ± 200 microKelvin. Credit: NASA / WMAP Science Team

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Farthest View Ever of the Universe: Hubble eXtreme Deep Field

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Hubble eXtreme Deep Field: a new, improved portrait of mankind's deepest-ever view of the Universe

Countless planets, stars, galaxies, clusters...

Farthest View Ever of the Universe: Hubble eXtreme Deep Field

SEPTEMBER 25, 2012: Like photographers assembling a portfolio of best shots, astronomers have assembled a new, improved portrait of mankind's deepest-ever view of the universe. Called the eXtreme Deep Field, or XDF, the photo was assembled by combining 10 years of NASA Hubble Space Telescope photographs taken of a patch of sky at the center of the original Hubble Ultra Deep Field. The XDF is a small fraction of the angular diameter of the full Moon. The Hubble Ultra Deep Field is an image of a small area of space in the constellation Fornax, created using Hubble Space Telescope data from 2003 and 2004. By collecting faint light over many hours of observation, it revealed thousands of galaxies, both nearby and very distant, making it the deepest image of the universe ever taken at that time. The new full-color XDF image reaches much fainter galaxies and includes very deep exposures in red light from Hubble's new infrared camera, enabling new studies of the earliest galaxies in the universe. The XDF contains about 5,500 galaxies even within its smaller field of view. The faintest galaxies are one ten-billionth the brightness of what the human eye can see.

Fly Through the Hubble eXtreme Deep Field This video takes you through Hubble's deepest view of the universe, from its location in the sky to the dimmest, most distant galaxies.



Hubble Extreme Deep Field Pushes Back Frontiers of Time and Space This video explains how astronomers meticulously assembled mankind's deepest view of the universe from combining Hubble Space Telescope exposures taken over the past decade. Guest scientists are Dr. Garth Illingworth and Dr. Marc Postman.









The public is invited to participate in a "Meet the Hubble eXtreme Deep Field Observing Team" webinar, where three key astronomers of the XDF observing team will describe how they assembled the landmark image and explain what it tells us about the evolving universe. Participants will be able to send in questions for the panel of experts to discuss. The webinar will be broadcast at 1:00 p.m. EDT on Thursday, September 27, 2012. To participate in the webinar, please visit: http://hubblesite.org/go/xdf/ .

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Galactic Halo: Milky Way Is Surrounded by Hot Gas

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This artist's illustration shows an enormous halo of hot gas (in blue) around the Milky Way galaxy. Also shown, to the lower left of the Milky Way, are the Small and Large Magellanic Clouds, two small neighboring galaxies. The halo of gas is shown with a radius of about 300,000 light years, although it may extend significantly further.

NASA'S Chandra Shows Milky Way is Surrounded by Halo of Hot Gas

● Chandra has provided evidence that our Milky Way Galaxy is embedded in an enormous halo of hot gas that extends for hundreds of thousands of light years.
● The mass of the halo is estimated to be comparable to the mass of all the stars in the Milky Way galaxy.
● If the size and mass of this gas halo is confirmed, it could be the solution to the "missing-baryon" problem for the Galaxy.

WASHINGTON (Sept. 24, 2012) -- Astronomers have used NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory to find evidence our Milky Way Galaxy is embedded in an enormous halo of hot gas that extends for hundreds of thousands of light years. The estimated mass of the halo is comparable to the mass of all the stars in the galaxy.

If the size and mass of this gas halo is confirmed, it also could be an explanation for what is known as the "missing baryon" problem for the galaxy.

Baryons are particles, such as protons and neutrons, that make up more than 99.9 percent of the mass of atoms found in the cosmos. Measurements of extremely distant gas halos and galaxies indicate the baryonic matter present when the universe was only a few billion years old represented about one-sixth the mass and density of the existing unobservable, or dark, matter. In the current epoch, about 10 billion years later, a census of the baryons present in stars and gas in our galaxy and nearby galaxies shows at least half the baryons are unaccounted for.

In a recent study, a team of five astronomers used data from Chandra, the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton space observatory and Japan's Suzaku satellite to set limits on the temperature, extent and mass of the hot gas halo. Chandra observed eight bright X-ray sources located far beyond the galaxy at distances of hundreds of millions of light-years. The data revealed X-rays from these distant sources are absorbed selectively by oxygen ions in the vicinity of the galaxy. The scientists determined the temperature of the absorbing halo is between 1 million and 2.5 million kelvins, or a few hundred times hotter than the surface of the sun.

Other studies have shown that the Milky Way and other galaxies are embedded in warm gas with temperatures between 100,000 and 1 million kelvins. Studies have indicated the presence of a hotter gas with a temperature greater than 1 million kelvins. This new research provides evidence the hot gas halo enveloping the Milky Way is much more massive than the warm gas halo.

"We know the gas is around the galaxy, and we know how hot it is," said Anjali Gupta, lead author of The Astrophysical Journal paper describing the research. "The big question is, how large is the halo, and how massive is it?"

To begin to answer this question, the authors supplemented Chandra data on the amount of absorption produced by the oxygen ions with XMM-Newton and Suzaku data on the X-rays emitted by the gas halo. They concluded that the mass of the gas is equivalent to the mass in more than 10 billion suns, perhaps as large as 60 billion suns.

"Our work shows that, for reasonable values of parameters and with reasonable assumptions, the Chandra observations imply a huge reservoir of hot gas around the Milky Way," said co-author Smita Mathur of Ohio State University in Columbus. "It may extend for a few hundred thousand light-years around the Milky Way or it may extend farther into the surrounding local group of galaxies. Either way, its mass appears to be very large."

The estimated mass depends on factors such as the amount of oxygen relative to hydrogen, which is the dominant element in the gas. Nevertheless, the estimation represents an important step in solving the case of the missing baryons, a mystery that has puzzled astronomers for more than a decade.

Although there are uncertainties, the work by Gupta and colleagues provides the best evidence yet that the galaxy's missing baryons have been hiding in a halo of million-kelvin gas that envelopes the galaxy. The estimated density of this halo is so low that similar halos around other galaxies would have escaped detection.

The paper describing these results was published in the Sept. 1 issue of The Astrophysical Journal. Other co-authors were Yair Krongold of Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico in Mexico City; Fabrizio Nicastro of Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass.; and Massimiliano Galeazzi of University of Miami in Coral Gables, Fla.

NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manages the Chandra program for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory controls Chandra's science and flight operations from Cambridge.


Milky Way

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NASA Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes Observe Most Distant Galaxy Ever Seen?

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Newly discovered galaxy known as MACS 1149-JD (Image credit: NASA/ESA/STScI/JHU)

A Glimmer From a Dark Cosmic Era

WASHINGTON (NASA) -- With the combined power of NASA's Spitzer and Hubble space telescopes, as well as a cosmic magnification effect, astronomers have spotted what could be the most distant galaxy ever seen. Light from the primordial galaxy traveled approximately 13.2 billion light-years before reaching NASA's telescopes, shining forth from the so-called cosmic dark ages when the universe was just 3.6 percent of its present age.

Astronomers relied on gravitational lensing to catch sight of the early, distant galaxy. In this phenomenon, predicted by Albert Einstein a century ago, the gravity of foreground objects warps and magnifies the light from background objects.

In the big image at left, the many galaxies of a massive cluster called MACS J1149+2223 dominate the scene. Gravitational lensing by the giant cluster brightened the light from the newfound galaxy, known as MACS 1149-JD, some 15 times, bringing the remote object into view.

At upper right, a partial zoom-in shows MACS 1149-JD in more detail, and a deeper zoom appears to the lower right. In these visible and infrared light images from Hubble, MACS 1149-JD looks like a dim, red speck. The small galaxy's starlight has been stretched into longer wavelengths, or "redshifted," by the expansion of the universe. MACS 1149-JD's stars originally emitted the infrared light seen here at much shorter, higher-energy wavelengths, such as ultraviolet.

The far-off galaxy existed within an important era when the universe transformed from a starless expanse during the dark ages to a recognizable cosmos full of galaxies. The discovery of the faint, small galaxy opens a window onto the deepest, remotest epochs of cosmic history.


Hubble Space Telescope

NASA Telescopes Spy Ultra-Distant Galaxy Amidst Cosmic 'Dark Ages'

WASHINGTON (NASA) -- With the combined power of NASA's Spitzer and Hubble space telescopes, as well as a cosmic magnification effect, astronomers have spotted what could be the most distant galaxy ever seen. Light from the young galaxy captured by the orbiting observatories first shone when our 13.7-billion-year-old universe was just 500 million years old.

The far-off galaxy existed within an important era when the universe began to transit from the so-called cosmic dark ages. During this period, the universe went from a dark, starless expanse to a recognizable cosmos full of galaxies. The discovery of the faint, small galaxy opens a window onto the deepest, remotest epochs of cosmic history.

"This galaxy is the most distant object we have ever observed with high confidence," said Wei Zheng, a principal research scientist in the department of physics and astronomy at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and lead author of a new paper appearing in Nature. "Future work involving this galaxy, as well as others like it that we hope to find, will allow us to study the universe's earliest objects and how the dark ages ended."

Light from the primordial galaxy traveled approximately 13.2 billion light-years before reaching NASA's telescopes. In other words, the starlight snagged by Hubble and Spitzer left the galaxy when the universe was just 3.6 percent of its present age. Technically speaking, the galaxy has a redshift, or "z," of 9.6. The term redshift refers to how much an object's light has shifted into longer wavelengths as a result of the expansion of the universe. Astronomers use redshift to describe cosmic distances.

Unlike previous detections of galaxy candidates in this age range, which were only glimpsed in a single color, or waveband, this newfound galaxy has been seen in five different wavebands. As part of the Cluster Lensing And Supernova Survey with Hubble Program, the Hubble Space Telescope registered the newly described, far-flung galaxy in four visible and infrared wavelength bands. Spitzer measured it in a fifth, longer-wavelength infrared band, placing the discovery on firmer ground.

Objects at these extreme distances are mostly beyond the detection sensitivity of today's largest telescopes. To catch sight of these early, distant galaxies, astronomers rely on gravitational lensing. In this phenomenon, predicted by Albert Einstein a century ago, the gravity of foreground objects warps and magnifies the light from background objects. A massive galaxy cluster situated between our galaxy and the newfound galaxy magnified the newfound galaxy's light, brightening the remote object some 15 times and bringing it into view.

Based on the Hubble and Spitzer observations, astronomers think the distant galaxy was less than 200 million years old when it was viewed. It also is small and compact, containing only about 1 percent of the Milky Way's mass. According to leading cosmological theories, the first galaxies indeed should have started out tiny. They then progressively merged, eventually accumulating into the sizable galaxies of the more modern universe.

These first galaxies likely played the dominant role in the epoch of reionization, the event that signaled the demise of the universe's dark ages. This epoch began about 400,000 years after the Big Bang when neutral hydrogen gas formed from cooling particles. The first luminous stars and their host galaxies emerged a few hundred million years later. The energy released by these earliest galaxies is thought to have caused the neutral hydrogen strewn throughout the universe to ionize, or lose an electron, a state that the gas has remained in since that time.

"In essence, during the epoch of reionization, the lights came on in the universe," said paper co-author Leonidas Moustakas, a research scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif.

Astronomers plan to study the rise of the first stars and galaxies and the epoch of reionization with the successor to both Hubble and Spitzer, NASA's James Webb Telescope, which is scheduled for launch in 2018. The newly described distant galaxy likely will be a prime target.


Spitzer Space Telescope

For more information about Spitzer, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/spitzer

For more information about Hubble, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/hubble

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Hubble, Swift Detect First-Ever Changes in an Exoplanet Atmosphere

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This artist's rendering illustrates the evaporation of HD 189733b's atmosphere in response to a powerful eruption from its host star. NASA's Hubble Space Telescope detected the escaping gases and NASA's Swift satellite caught the stellar flare.
(Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center)

Hubble, Swift Detect First-Ever Changes in an Exoplanet Atmosphere

An international team of astronomers using data from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has made an unparalleled observation, detecting significant changes in the atmosphere of a planet located beyond our solar system. The scientists conclude the atmospheric variations occurred in response to a powerful eruption on the planet's host star, an event observed by NASA's Swift satellite.

"The multiwavelength coverage by Hubble and Swift has given us an unprecedented view of the interaction between a flare on an active star and the atmosphere of a giant planet," said lead researcher Alain Lecavelier des Etangs at the Paris Institute of Astrophysics (IAP), part of the French National Scientific Research Center located at Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris.

The exoplanet is HD 189733b, a gas giant similar to Jupiter, but about 14 percent larger and more massive. The planet circles its star at a distance of only 3 million miles, or about 30 times closer than Earth's distance from the sun, and completes an orbit every 2.2 days. Its star, named HD 189733A, is about 80 percent the size and mass of our sun.

Exo-Planet Hot Flareup Astronomers classify the planet as a "hot Jupiter." Previous Hubble observations show that the planet's deep atmosphere reaches a temperature of about 1,900 degrees Fahrenheit (1,030 C). HD 189733b periodically passes across, or transits, its parent star, and these events give astronomers an opportunity to probe its atmosphere and environment. In a previous study, a group led by Lecavelier des Etangs used Hubble to show that hydrogen gas was escaping from the planet's upper atmosphere. The finding made HD 189733b only the second-known "evaporating" exoplanet at the time. The system is just 63 light-years away, so close that its star can be seen with binoculars near the famous Dumbbell Nebula. This makes HD 189733b an ideal target for studying the processes that drive atmospheric escape.




The exoplanet HD 189733b lies so near its star that it completes an orbit every 2.2 days. In late 2011, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope found that the planet's upper atmosphere was streaming away at speeds exceeding 300,000 mph. Just before the Hubble observation, NASA's Swift detected the star blasting out a strong X-ray flare, one powerful enough to blow away part of the planet's atmosphere. (Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center)

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Dolphin Nebula Swimming Through Space

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The Dolphin Nebula image is surreal. This is known and reported by Space.com as "crescent-shaped planetary nebula SH2-188 glows in wisps of green". Bill Snyder, an astrophotographer, has created an extraordinary image for us to enjoy and ponder.

Bill Snyder reports, "Sh2-188 also known as PNG128.0-4.1 and Simeis22. The Dolphin Nebula, in the constellation Cassiopeia, is a planetary nebula. It is approxmiatly 850 light years from Earth This an asymmetrical shaped planetary nebula."

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Dolphin Nebula

Thanks to Space.com for breaking the story and Bill Snyder for his wonderful image.

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Hubble Space Telescope: Best Images

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Hubble Space Telescope

The Hubble Space Telescope was launched on April 24, 1990. NASA & ESA have selected some of the best images, one for each year in service, in the video below. These include images of Saturn and rings, the colorful Orion Nebula, Herbig Haro 2, Messier 100, Shoemaker-Levy 9 Hits Jupiter, the classic Eagle Nebula, the odd and unusual NGC 6826, the red planet Mars, the amazing Ring Nebula, Keyhole Nebula, NGC 1999, ESO 510-G13, the striking Cone Nebula, the legendary Hubble Ultra Deep Field, the surreal Antennae Galaxies, the vast Orion Nebula, the "diamonds" of Messier 9, NGC 4874, the glowing NGC 2818, the symmetric Bug Nebula, Centaurus A, and the Tarantula Nebula.

Hubble Space Telescope - The Best Images From Over Two Decades In Orbit Hubblecast 54: 22 Years In Images. To celebrate the 22nd anniversary of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, this episode of the Hubblecast gives a slideshow of some of the best images from over two decades in orbit.




Eagle Nebula


NGC 6826

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Narrowing the Search for Dark Matter

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Scientists have further narrowed the search for a hypothetical particle that could be dark matter, the mysterious stuff that makes up 80 percent of all the mass in the universe. This video from NASA Astrophysics presents the new results, compiled from two years’ worth of data from NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope.

Gamma rays are very energetic light, and the telescope looks for faint gamma-ray signals that are generated by a variety of sources, such as gas and dust spiraling into supermassive black holes or exploding stars. But another potential source of gamma rays is dark matter. Although no one is sure what dark matter is, one of the leading candidates is a yet-to-be-discovered particle called a weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP). When two of these WIMPs meet, the theory goes, they can annihilate one another and generate gamma rays.

There are many possible versions of WIMPs, and they’re expected to span a wide range of masses, producing a range of gamma rays with different energies. Using Fermi, the scientists focused on 10 small galaxies that orbit the Milky Way, searching for gamma-ray signals within a specific range of energies. They found no signs of annihilating WIMPs, which rules out certain kinds of WIMPs as dark-matter candidates.




Narrowing the Search for Dark Matter | SpaceRip

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From Big Bang to Big Data: World's Largest Radio Telescope to Explore Origins of Universe

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SKA Radio Telescope Will Explored the Universe 13 Billion Years Ago (Credit: SPDO/Swinburne Astronomy Productions)

The SKA, Square Kilometre Array, radio telescope isn't planned for completion until 2024, but IBM is now collaborating to eventually process the incredible amount of data that will result. This is Really Big Data, as in well over 1 exabyte daily, which is more than the world's daily Internet traffic.

Introducing the SKA

The SKA telescope central core will be either in Australia or South Africa. A decision for the location will be made in 2012. A global community of astronomers from more than 20 countries is setting out to build the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), the world’s largest radio telescope.

This extremely powerful survey telescope will have millions of antennas to collect radio signals, forming a collection area equivalent to one square kilometre but spanning a huge surface area - over 3000 km wide or approximately the width of the continental United States. The SKA will be 50 times more sensitive than any former radio device and more than 10,000 times faster than today’s instruments.

The SKA is expected to produce a few Exabytes of data per day for a single beam per one square kilometer. After processing this data the expectation is that per year between 300 and 1500 Petabytes of data need to be stored. In comparison, the approximately 15 Petabytes produced by the large hadron collider at CERN per year of operation is approximately 10 to 100 times less than the envisioned capacity of SKA.

From Big Bang to Big Data: ASTRON and IBM Collaborate to Explore Origins of the Univers

ASTRON, the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy and IBM today announced an initial 32.9 million EURO, five-year collaboration to research extremely fast, but low-power exascale computer systems targeted for the international Square Kilometre Array (SKA). The SKA is an international consortium to build the world's largest and most sensitive radio telescope. Scientists estimate that the processing power required to operate the telescope will be equal to several millions of today's fastest computers.

ASTRON is one of the leading scientific partners in the international consortium that is developing the SKA. Upon completion in 2024, the telescope will be used to explore evolving galaxies, dark matter and even the very origins of the universe—dating back more than 13 billion years.






The Square Kilometre Array

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Universe Expanding at Increasing Rate: Dark Energy and Gravity Conflict

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WMAP Full Sky 7 Years

The detailed, all-sky picture of the infant universe created from seven years of WMAP data. The image reveals 13.7 billion year old temperature fluctuations (shown as color differences) that correspond to the seeds that grew to become the galaxies. The signal from the our Galaxy was subtracted using the multi-frequency data. This image shows a temperature range of ± 200 microKelvin. Credit: NASA / WMAP Science Team

The Expanding Universe In 1998, astrophysicists discovered a baffling phenomenon: the Universe is expanding at an ever-faster rate. Either an enigmatic force called dark energy is to blame or a reworking of gravitational theory is in order. In this new Science Bulletins video, watch a Fermilab team assemble the Dark Energy Camera, a device that could finally solve this space-stretching mystery.

Content of the Universe

WMAP data reveals that its contents include 4.6% atoms, the building blocks of stars and planets. Dark matter comprises 23% of the universe. This matter, different from atoms, does not emit or absorb light. It has only been detected indirectly by its gravity. 72% of the universe, is composed of "dark energy", that acts as a sort of anti-gravity. This energy, distinct from dark matter, is responsible for the present-day acceleration of the universal expansion. WMAP data is accurate to two digits, so the total of these numbers is not 100%. This reflects the current limits of WMAP's ability to define Dark Matter and Dark Energy. Credit: NASA / WMAP Science Team

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Michio Kaku on the Search for Earth's Twin: The Holy Grail of Planetary Astronomy

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Kepler-22 System


The Holy Grail of Planetary Astronomy As noted in a prior post, not only are planets numerous, there are more planets than stars in the Milky Way and presumably in other galaxies. NASA’s Kepler mission has discovered the first Earth-size planets orbiting a sun-like star outside our solar system. Previously Gliese 581g was discovered as a potential earth-like planet in the habitable zone.

Michio Kaku on The Holy Grail of Planetary Astronomy: The Search for Earth's Twin Dr. Kaku addresses the following question: A recently discovered planet named Kepler 22b apparently has a very, very similar composition to Earth, although I don't think they have it exactly figured out yet. What do discoveries like this mean and what is the possibility of many other earth-like planets being out there?




Gliese 581 System


Related Stories
Planets More Common in Milky Way than Stars: Planets Everywhere
Kepler Discovers First Earth-Sized Planets Outside Solar System
Exoplanet Gliese 581g Might Support Life


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