The oldest light ever seen has been captured by a group of astronomers based at Leiden University.
The scientists reported their discovery at a NASA press conference. Dutchmen Rychard Bouwens and Marijn Franx wrote in Nature journal that the light rays date back 13.2 billion years and were spotted on photographs taken by the Hubble telescope.
They said they cannot ascertain what the source of the light was, but it may have been a newborn galaxy. The Hubble camera's resolution is insufficient to provide conclusive evidence.
Big Bang
At the time the light rays were emitted, the universe was 'just' 380 million years old, which is relatively soon after the Big Bang. The discovery means we're looking way back almost to the beginning of time. Dr Franx told RNW, "It was exciting to see the photos arrive".
The 87-hour-long exposure by Hubble revealed just a single solar system, although researchers had expected far more. This can only mean that the universe underwent great changes in a relatively short period. After the light burst, by the time the universe was 630 million years old, there were at least 40 galaxy. Astronomers are assuming that many systems were formed in the universe's early years.
New telescope
The light from the newly-discovered galaxy, which has been christened UDFj-39546284, is in the near-infrared part of the spectrum, which is invisible to the naked eye. The ancient light was captured by a sophisticated camera which was installed in the Hubble telescope only 18 months ago. The exposure took hours because the incoming light was extremely weak.
A new piece of space equipment, the James Webb telescope, is expected to give academics at Leiden University a better picture of the early period of the universe. Marijn Franx is one of the researchers involved. He is hoping to continue his studies of the contender galaxy after the launch of James Webb in 2015 or 2016.
(rk/imm)
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Hi "Tough Old Man",
Thanks for the comment.I'm not an astronomer myself, but I think the article in Nature can answer some of your questions: http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110126/full/news.2011.47.html.
And, if you want to get REALLY technical, here is a link to the whole paper: http://www.spacetelescope.org/static/archives/releases/science_papers/heic1103.pdf
Hope that helps.
Cheers!
Ashleigh
Please ask Dutchmen Rychard Bouwens and Marijn Franx of Nature journal to explain, in layman’s terms, how they determined that the light rays,spotted on photographs taken by the Hubble telescope, date back 13.2 billion years. How much probability is there for error? They don’t even know what it is and the Hubble camera's resolution is insufficient to provide conclusive evidence.
Isn’t Rychard Bouwens and Marijn Franx jumping to conclusions without sufficient evidence? Am I wrong in saying that this extremely unscientific? It seems that Rychard Bouwens and Marijn Franx need to correct their, “discovery,” they reported at a NASA press conference. If they don’t make a public correction, it seems they will discredit Nature journal AND the astronomers based at Leiden University.
I don’t mean to demean Rychard Bouwens and Marijn Franx, just sharpen their already sharp minds that may be in error due to being overconfident and unchallenged.
If you use Einstein’s concept of the relativity of time causing an unbent, straight line into space reaching back to it’s beginning due to the properties of time, you can grab a better understanding of there never being a, “beginning,” to time at all. I believe that shoots down the, “Big Bang,” THEORY with a boom. Some things are beyond human comprehension. There is a concept that the infinitesimal merges into the infinitely large. You can not detect it because you can not see the beginning or the end. The beginning or the end doesn’t exist. So it is with time. This is, “just the tip of the ice berg“.
Wow! But there is only one inhabited planet...known to us...wonder why!
The universe ought to be presumed too vast to have any character.
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