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NASA / ESA / MPIA / STScI / CANDELS
A near-infrared image captured by the Hubble Space Telescope reveals 18 tiny galaxies that existed 9 billion years ago and are brimming with starbirth. The numbers show you where the thumbnail galaxy pictures are located in the wider picture.
The Hubble Space Telescope has turned up a population of tiny, young galaxies that are just brimming with starbirth.
The 69 dwarf galaxies were spotted during a three-year sky scan known as the Cosmic Assembly Deep Extragalactic Legacy Survey, or CANDELS. Their average mass is only about 1 percent the mass of our own Milky Way galaxy, but they're churning out stars at such a furious pace that the stars are on track to double in just 10 million years. It would take the Milky Way 10 billion years to achieve a similar doubling.
The galaxies are being seen as they existed 9 billion years ago, during a time when the star production rate was higher than it is today. But even by that measure, the birth rate is so high that astronomers may have to reassess their models for galaxy formation.
Astronomers could spot the galaxies because the radiation from hot, young stars lit up the oxygen in the gas surrounding them like a neon sign. Or at least that's the way it's described in today's image advisory from NASA.
"The galaxies have been there all along, but up until recently astronomers have been able only to survey tiny patches of sky at the sensitivities necessary to detect them," said Arjen van der Wel of Germany's Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, lead author of a paper on the results being published online Nov. 14 in The Astrophysical Journal. "We weren't looking specifically for these galaxies, but they stood out because of their unusual colors."
This video zooms in on Hubble imagery showing tiny galaxies that are brimming with star formation.
A co-author of the paper, Amber Straughn of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, said the spectral signature of the oxygen was a tip-off that the galaxies were in the throes of extreme starbirth. "Spectra are like fingerprints. They tell us the galaxies' chemical composition," she explained.
The Hubble team said the observations appear to be at odds with recent detailed studies of the Milky Way's satellite dwarf galaxies. "Those studies suggest that star formation was a relatively slow process, stretching out over billions of years," said Harry Ferguson of the Space Telescope Science Institute, co-leader of the CANDELS survey. "The CANDELS finding that there were galaxies of roughly the same size, forming stars at very rapid rates at early times, is forcing us to re-examine what we thought we knew about dwarf galaxy evolution."
Solving the mystery is just one more task on the to-do list for Hubble and its successor, the James Webb Space Telescope.
More galactic glories:
- What a cute, fluffy galaxy!
- Our galaxy's mysterious twist
- Crazy cosmic lens focuses on dark matter
- A galactic rose for Hubble's 21st anniversary
- Slideshow: Coolest cosmic pictures of October
Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or following the Cosmic Log Google+ page. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
Leave a Comment:
So what do you suppose it looks like today, 9 billion years later.
I bet it's bigger... This sure is a big place.....
Upgradedd
Our universe is Much bigger then we thought or could have ever imagined. Have a good day my friend.
Tom And Lyn
Thank you... It's all such a wonder and we are so fortunate to be a part of it... in this moment between eternities.
These photos are so beautiful it is hard to put into words, the Hubble Space Telescope has been one of the best learning tools of all time, giving us a new perspective on the world around us.
This is another fine example to why we need to spend money on our space program, it shows us who we are, where we live, and that we may not be alone in our universe. This instrument is making humanity ask more questions to how did this all get started, why are we here, and what is going to one day become our children’s future.
Here is another video I have made with the help from the folks at ESA/Hubble they work very hard to bring us all images like these.
The name of the video is "Hubble's Jewel Box" take a look and enjoy.
Have a good day, Tom And Lyn
"Hubble's Jewel Box"
http://youtu.be/CjzJNab3P1Q
very nice...
yes, very nice.
Thank you Thomas, that was indeed so surreal and beautiful and the music certainly help enhance the imagination of the mind.
One interesting thought that came though watching it was could our universe be Heaven's atmosphere? Are we floating around God's furnace, eternal energy.
I guess watching it links one to God because it gives the same motivating and inspiring feelings as studying the Lord's words.
I wonder why God designed us as He did? He gave us so much to learn that no single individual can decipher it in one lifetime. He seems to be uniting us throughout the ages by our continuum search for Him through the sciences.
His existence is proven through His creation. Awesome!
All this in only 6000 years, I feel I should atone for something...not!
At e3xplorerdog1: Not in 6000 years. The universe is as old as the scientists say it is, I believe. You should read a book by George Schroeder called "The science of God." He is an astronomer who can very convincingly explain how the 6000 years of biblical creation is almost exactly equivalent to the present day age of the universe from our perspective. Its all about relativity. Don't doubt God my friend. Have a open mind and do the research yourself. The whole thing could not have began on its own. God bless.
Greg, Yeah, it could have. Both sides of the "god" argument have no proof. Science just explains the "how" not the "why". My money is on the side of precise measuring/mathematics/physics/empirical data though.....--S--
Thanks Guys I put a lot of hard work putting this video together, but without ESA/Hubble that video would not have been possible, their hard work is who I give credit here.
Have a good day, Tom And Lyn
I will hate to see when Hubble comes to its end. Tom And Lyn
You aren't the only one.
50 more years still wouldn't be long enough.
Maybe Virgin could take over after NASA abandons it?
Sorry Guys About My Bad Spelling :-) My Eyes Are not so good anymore at my age.
have a good day Tom And Lyn
Excellent work Tom, really appreciate your efforts.
"Fascinating"
Spock 1967
"Those are the second-smallest galaxies I've seen this month!"
Maxwell Smart 1966
Looking at that photo brings to mind a qoute from The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy: "space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly hugely mind-bogglingly big it is..."
Thanks for the photo and video.
Stunningly beautiful picture, but one of the worst-supported and assumptive articles that I've read in a very long time. Get back to what you know, Alan, and avoid the superfluous.
Interesting comment.
Do you have any sort of support, examples, evidence or reasoning to back up your assumption?
I can't seem to find any.
@Greg-4459646 Dinosaurs--you can't explain that
Dinosaurs and fossils in 6,000 years are easy to understand - more difficult at first, though, if you've spent the past few dozens of years assuming that your archaeological "knowledge" was factual. Exercise #1 - go check out the 4,000 year old cave paintings of dinosaurs. Then tell me why all of those paintings depict standing dinosaurs with skin and scales. Then tell me how the painters had ANY idea of what they MIGHT have looked like, based on a few bones they might have found -- without actually seeing them. Or wait, maybe they DID see them. Don't scoff. You don't believe it because you've been taught otherwise, by people who were taught otherwise, etc. Reconsider your assumptions. False assumptions will always lead to false results. GIGO.
cave paintings of Dinosaurs? So glad I was not eating.
@PAQ
Your comment almost made me spit out my coffee. My sentiments exactly. I wonder where they come up with this.
How long I wonder, will it be before the scientific community begins to understand that "Dark matter" is really just the incalculable amount of normal matter in the form of dust clouds, rogue planets, red dwarfs, dwarf galaxies and other normal stuff that we just haven't found yet. We think we see the universe and wonder why its size doesn't match the gravitational effects. In reality, the gravitational effects tell us the size and tell us that we've hardly seen a fraction of the amount of matter in the universe. No need for WIMPS or any other kind of imaginary particles.
Yea, sure, except we think we've done a pretty good job of accounting for the amount of baryonic ("normal") matter that you are referring to, and it's still WAY too short (orders of magnitude) to account for the gravitational effect that we observe.
We've been working on this problem for 70+ years; don't you think that occurred to us? Don't you think we chased those possibilities down, and found them insufficient to explain the problem?
@ Michael:
I have a question. Why exactly is it assumed there is not enough baryonic matter?
Is it because if there were that much gas, however thin, we would not be able to see distant galaxies? Or for example, if there were enough brown dwarves, there would be too much gravitational chaos and they would eventually collapse into stars? Is it even gravitationally possible to have 10 brown dwarves for every star out there?
Like, is it even remotely possible that the missing mass isn't just a whole bunch of little rocks? I realize that Sol is far and away the most massive object in the solar system, is it possible the oort cloud contains a sizable chunk of mass that we just haven't detected yet?
I've always had problems with dark matter and energy. It hurts my brain. Like every time. So I just assume we don't really understand gravity or space... or both...
Actually, it's close. Correct me if I'm wrong Michael, but I believe the number is somewhere in the range of 70% of stars are actually brown dwarfs.
Little rocks make up so little of the mass its laughable. Take, for instance, our solar system. All of the "little rocks" combined with all the planets (even the massive gas giants) only makes up about 0.01% of the mass in our solar system, infinitesimally small. Now consider we are a pretty average solar system, you could expect about the same of most solar systems. Even if you exaggerated that number greatly you still wouldn't come up with even 20% of the perceived mass of the universe.
Well, by little rocks I mean more along the lines of Jupiter sized rogue planets spread throughout the galaxy. (Compared to stars, Jupiter size pretty much means little rocks)
Also, when you say all the little rocks combined, you are referring to all of those which we have seen. We still have not seen them all. 20 years ago there was no such thing as extra-solar planets or dwarf planets. WISE is still finding stuff every day. And I don't know if there IS any such thing as an 'average solar system'. Most of the ones we have found look nothing at all like ours. (selection bias for sure but the point still stands)
I guess my my question is ultimately what type of theoretical limit is there to rogue planets, dwarf planets, asteroids and dust? At what point does it become mathematically impossible to have that much dust, that many asteroids and that many rogue planets out there? 20% of the observable mass? 50%? 5%? Humans tend to look at big flashy things and discount small things as if it is impossible for little things to add up to anything significant. But the solar system was born out of little bits of dust, and after the star was born, most of the rest of it just blew away... There HAS to be more dust out there than stars, otherwise, where would the stars come from? I mean you can see intense star formation in compression waves in other galaxies just from dust piling up. Even dust has gravity, and gravity changes space time.
I realize dark matter and energy are more placeholders for gaps in our understanding, but it has always sounded to me like 'Here there be dragons!' and many times any sort of questioning about or alternate theories to dark matter are met with intense criticism as if to say, WE MUST HAVE DRAGONS!
Don't get me wrong, I'm not entirely sure how I feel about dark matter or energy either, however they are, as you said, placeholders.
What I meant here was, the entire mass of our solar system, little rocks included WITH all the planets is less than 0.01% of the ENTIRE mass of our solar system. The sun is 99.9% of ALL the mass in our solar system. My point here is that we can apply that to other stars. It's a safe bet that all the stars we do see make up AT LEAST 98% of their respective solar systems masses.
This is a great question, hopefully someone with a more intimate knowledge of these theories (Michael?) will be able to provide a suitable answer. I'm certain there is a number and that someone has it, but I'm not certain what it is exactly.
And then there is the matter of "dark energy."
"The galaxies have been there all along, but up until recently astronomers have been able only to survey tiny patches of sky at the sensitivities necessary to detect them,"
I have a suspicion that one fine day 'Dark Matter' is going to turn out to be something else that's "...been there all along..." we don't currently have the sensitivities necessary to detect.
A tug of war for the ages.
Maybe dark matter (and dark energy) is our conjoined twin that is regressing in time, (the change of quantum states are in the "negative" time direction).
The idea that dark matter is much more in abundance than baryonic matter doesn't mean we are winning or losing, because we will need to know the rates of creation (release) or destruction (annihilation) of baryonic mass to know are fate.
Note for the analytic folk, negative time could also have positive entropy. They are not contradictary and the evolution operator allows for reversal of time.
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