Hubble snaps stunning baby pic of cosmos Galactic whirls from 12 billion years ago

http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/space/06/19/bigbang.view.reut/index.html ^ | Thursday, June 19, 2003 Posted: 2:19 PM EDT (1819 GMT)

[DannyTN]

New Hubble peers deep in cosmic past and future (2002)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- A new wide-angle view of the universe looks back to a mere billion years after the Big Bang, revealing secrets about the lives of galaxies and the black holes at their hearts, scientists reported on Thursday.

[DoughtyOne]

If you broke the picture up into quandrants about one inch square, each one appears to be worth looking at in detail. It's just a great shot full of interesting subjects.

[The Shootist]

Sure it does. First he created the light. Where was the light that he created? Everywhere! Then he seperated the light from the dark and made the first day. The light didn't need 12 billion years to get here because it already was here.

Actually the first "light" of creation has been seen. By COBE (COsmic Background Explorer). The "light" it saw predates the galaxies in the above Hubble photo by 700,000 years.

I can tell that your mind is open to every kind of new and exciting discovery and I'm certain you have the education and intellectual capacity to truly understand the significance of this most excellent discovery.

COBE

[ricpic]

I'll take Mickey Rooney over all that empty space. If he was good enough for Ava Gardner he's good enough for me.

[Larry Lucido]

If you are on a plane travelling at 300 miles per hour and you look over and see a fly going by in the cabin. how fast is the fly going?????

Damn, now I'm going to be wondering about that all day.

And does it matter if the fly is flying toward first class or toward the back? Does it matter which way the earth below is rotating? Does it matter if it's being chased by a frog someone brought on board?

[ctonious]

What am I missing?

Don't be intimidated by those who throw "Oh that's really simple" BS at you. I "are" an MIT-educated Aeronautical & Astronautical engineer (as we illiterate engineers say) - and I don't get it either. I never have - and I came to this thread hoping to ask the exact same question you did. So far, I haven't seen anybody demonstrate any understanding of it.

We need an astrophysicist to explain how we are either moving at a substantial fraction of the speed of light - in which case light itself is saying "Hold up!! (Pant, Pant) I gotta show you these 12 billion year old images of the beginning of the universe" - or how the other side of the universe that we're looking at - warp-drove away from us at many times the speed of light right after the Big Bang - and then deigned to slow down to show us what it was doing at 1 billion years old.

[Hatteras]

Huh?...

[Blood of Tyrants]

Scientifically challenged? Hardly. Just because I don't hold that people spontaneously evolved from mud and rocks doesn't mean that I am unable to effectively deal with science. I am an electrical engineer and deal with scientific principles every single day.

[kjam22]

Despite the fact that this light took 12 billion years to reach us, the originating galaxy was probably only 4 or 5 billion light years away when it was emitted.

You've just redefined the meaning of a "light year".

[Blood of Tyrants]

When dealing with the speed of planets and galaxies relative to each other, simple Newtonian math works just fine.

Also, I agree that they are using some fuzzy math here. Supposedly the relative speeds of the galaxies are MUCH lower than c. If the galaxy they are talking about is 12 billion light years away, and the universe is 13 billion years old, then at some point nearly every object in the universe was traveling at or near the speed of light.

Also, using their argument that the light from the mentioned galaxy has traveled 12 billion years to get here, the simple fact that you can see it at all suggest that the relative speed of the galaxy 12 billion years ago was well within the Netwtonian physics range. Otherwise, the Doppler shift would have made the frequency of the light coming from the galaxy so low that it simply could not be seen.

Using those two points of logic assume the earth and the galaxy are relatively the same distance from the center of the "big bang" (6 billion light years) and that their speed is relatively low. That means that they traveled 6 billion light years each within the span of 1 billion years and thus violated the theory of relativity which states that no object can achieve the speed of light except light itself.

[Blood of Tyrants]

P.S. What part of "No personal attacks" do you not understand?

[kjam22]

The passage of time has enormously slowed down now, and things are happenning at a snails pace, but compared to the speed of the passage of time 10 billion years from now, we are zippy indeed.

Interesting how the theory is exactly the opposite of our senses. Is there anyone in this forum who feels that time has slowed down during their lifetime? Or do we all feel that time is moving faster each year?

[Arthalion]

You've just redefined the meaning of a "light year".

I didn't redefine anything...it's those pesky astrophysicists who made the math so complex :-) It's pretty easy to visualize and demonstrate the concept with a balloon, ruler, pen, watch, and a friend. Take a balloon and blow it up about 1/3 of the way. Now place 2 dots on opposite sides of the balloon and begin drawing a line between the dots at the rate of one inch per minute. While you're drawing the line, have your friend continue inflating the balloon, but do not accellerate your line drawing speed. You have now simulated the effects of cosmic expansion and its effects on light. Your balloon is the universe, your dots stars, and your line represents the photons travelling at the constant speed of light. When you started, your points were no more than 6 "line minutes" apart, but by the time the "line" from one reaches the other it may stretch over 12 "line minutes".

Got it?

[ctonious]

And if you're travelling the speed of light and turn on your headlights, what happens to the light?

Here's where it gets REALLY tricky. Believe it or not - the speed of light past ANY reference point is "c" - the speed of light. Therefore, if two spacecraft approach each other - each going the speed of light - and they both turn on their headlights - what is the relative closing speed of their respective beams of light?

A) 4c
B) 2c
C) 110 mph
D) c
E) Relativity sucks

Answer: D (Partial credit for E)

This (and the suicide rate) is why they made freshman year at MIT Pass/Fail.

[Dilbert56]

You hit on something key. When Einstein first proposed that time was relative, not a constant, everyone thought that it was nonsense. Even we, who never move close to the speed of light, have episodes where time stand still or blurs by. When your basketball team is winning or your anxiously awaiting the next highway rest stop, time seems to slow down. When you team is trying to catch up, time seems to evaporate. So our experience is that time is perceived as relative.

Einstein's theory of time slowing down when you're moving has been proven experimentally. From what I've read, GPS satellites are moving fast enough that time here on the surface is faster. They are also farther out in Earth's gravitational field so time actually speeds up for them as well. The two don't quite cancel out and GPS would be off by something like 8 miles without Einstein's equations for relative time. Note: I've only read this, not actually done the math.

[kjam22]

If I hit on something in this field.... it was dumb luck:)

There is much I don't understand... and to be honest... much that I doubt.

I agree it is our experience that time is perceived as relative. So what is reality? Can reality ever be different than what we perceive it to be? Is reality subjective?

When I hear an astrologer tell me that they are seeing light from something that happened 12 billion years ago... I tend to want to ask a lot of questions about how they decided that. (problem is I'm not smart enough to know if they are feeding me a line or not when they do explain it) Seems they would have to observe the object for a substantial period of time to determine it's direction within the "balloon" as compared to ours.... before they could make that calculation.

Then I have to wonder... if the light isn't visible to my eye, meaning I haven't seen it yet.... then it's older than they say. They're using equipment that shortens the distance it is away aren't they? They probably factor that in. But when will I see it with my own eyes? Certainly I won't. So I realize it is to tiny for me to see because it was so far away... but since the light took potentially 12 billion years to get here and it only started out 1 billion years away.... I'm assuming it's appearance got smaller and more difficult to see as it journeyed through time.... and I'm sure they somehow have all that calculated.

I was really interested in the pictures of the Cone Nebula that made the internet a while back.. until I found out that they were colorized and did not appear like that in "reality". Altering what the hubble sees and sending it to the public is not a great way to gain my confidence.

[Centurion2000]

bump :)

[RightWhale]

I don't believe the universe is 13 billion years old

Why? It's much older, isn't it?

[RJL]

You cannot travel at the speed of light.

I hope this is like 100 years ago when we couldn't exceed the speed of sound.

[colorado tanker]

Cool pictures of baby galaxies. Good thing they didn't have abortion back then.

[RoughDobermann]

You cannot travel at the speed of light. However, no matter how fast an object travels light that it emits will always travel at the same speed, ~300000 kilometers/second

Light travels at the speed of light, and it has mass. Why else would be affected by gravity?