Friday, April 15, 2011

Through Gravity's Lens


Hubble photo of the gravitational lens in cluster Abell 383. The curving arcs are galaxies behind Abell, their images bent by gravity. This cluster has far more mass than is visible. Abell 383 would also be a good place to seek massive Black Holes.

Monday night attendees at the Humans in Space Symposium were treated to a showing of the Hubble IMAX 3-D movie at Houston's Museum of Natural Science. The film was introduced by astrophysicist, former astronaut and Hubble repairman Dr, John Grunsfeld. (The very next night HMNS was site of a Tweetup celebrating Yuri's night.)

A galaxy newly found by Hubble and the Swift telescope has been found to have formed only 950 million years after the Big Bang. Astronomers used our Keck 2 telescope atop Mauna Kea to determine the galaxy's redshift. Stars within this galaxy appear to be 750 milllion years old, meaning they were formed when the Universe was only 200 million years old. Space.com story. Old theories of star formation can not explain how they could have formed when the Universe was so young. The cores of these stars may have formed around primordial Black Holes.

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3 Comments:

Blogger Ulla said...

And how can the light from those primitive galaxies still be seen? When so much is happening, new galaxies are born, etc. I should think the light would be disturbed (bent) so much it would be impossible to see (trapped). Is (virtual) light (neutral charge?) transmissioned in some other way than usual? No wave? No particle? Or is there a (virtual) grid or ether?

9:42 PM  
Blogger L. Riofrio said...

HI. We can only see those galaxies because Abell's lens magnifies them for us. On the way the light has slowed down, which makes uninformed scientists think that the whole universe is accelerating.

6:15 PM  
Anonymous viagra online said...

Amazing isn't it? How human has been exploring outside our Earth. Things that years we thought impossible are now possible thanks to technology advances.

10:13 AM  

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