Posted on 01/09/2002 5:24:37 AM PST by Darth Reagan
WASHINGTON (AP) - A half billion years of utter blackness following the Big Bang, the theoretical start of the universe, was broken by an explosion of stars bursting into life like a fireworks finale across the heavens, a new theory suggests.
An analysis of very faint galaxies in the deepest view of the universe ever captured by a telescope suggests there was an eruption of stars bursting to life and piercing the blackness very early in the 15-billion year history of the universe.
The study, by Kenneth M. Lanzetta of the State University of New York at Stony Brook challenges the long held belief that star formation started slowly after the Big Bang and didn't peak until some five billion years later.
``Star formation took place early and very rapidly,'' Lanzetta said Tuesday at a NASA (news - web sites) news conference. ``Star formation was ten times higher in the distant early universe than it is today.''
Lanzetta's conclusions are based on an analysis of what is called a deep field study by the Hubble Space Telescope (news - web sites). To capture the faintest and most distant images possible, the Hubble focused on an ordinary bit of sky for more than 14 days, taking a picture of every object within a small, deep slice of the heavens. The resulting images are faint, fuzzy bits of light from galaxies near and far, including some more than 14 billion light years away, said Lanzetta.
The surprise was that the farther back the telescope looked, the greater was the star forming activity.
``Star formation continued to increase to the very earliest point that we could see,'' said Lanzetta. ``We are seeing close to the first burst of star formation.''
Bruce Margon of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore said Lanzetta's conclusions are a ``surprising result'' that will need to be confirmed by other studies.
``This suggests that the great burst of star formation was at the beginning of the universe,'' said Margon, noting that, in effect: ``The finale came first.''
``If this can be verified, it will dramatically change our understanding of the universe,'' said Anne Kinney, director of the astronomy and physics division at NASA.
In his study, Lanzetta examined light captured in the Hubble deep field images using up to 12 different light filters to separate the colors. The intensity of red was used to establish the distance to each point of light. The distances were then used to create a three-dimensional perspective of the 5,000 galaxies in the Hubble picture.
Lanzetta also used images of nearby star fields as a yardstick for stellar density and intensity to conclude that about 90 percent of the light in the very early universe was not detected by the Hubble. When this missing light was factored into the three dimensional perspective, it showed that the peak of star formation came just 500 million years after the Big Bang and has been declining since.
Current star formation, he said, ``is just a trickle'' of that early burst of stellar birth.
Lisa Storrie-Lombardi, a California Institute of Technology astronomer, said that the colors of the galaxies in the Hubble deep field images ``are a very good indication of their distance.''
Current theory suggests that about 15 billion years ago, an infinitely dense single point exploded - the Big Bang - creating space, time, matter and extreme heat. As the universe cooled, light elements, such as hydrogen and helium, formed. Later, some of areas became more dense with elements than others, forming gravitational centers that attracted more and more matter. Eventually, formed celestial bodies became dense enough to start nuclear fires, setting the heavens aglow. These were newborn stars.
Storrie-Lombardi said that current instruments and space telescopes now being planned could eventually, perhaps, see into the Dark Era, the time before there were stars.
``We are getting close to the epoch were we can not see at all,'' she said.
And who made the thing that went, "Bang," hmmmm? If there ever were such a theoretical thing which I highly doubt.
Not necesarily. Scientists are currently studying plants that grow without sun at vents in the earths crust and plant like organisms that feed on minerals in the earth.
Theologically speaking, I believe the first light was not the light of the sun but rather the light of Jesus. (See John Chapter 1) In addition in Revelations the new earth is lighted by God not by the sun. There is no need for the sun anymore to light the city.
The Big Bang never happened.
You obviously have little knowledge of that which you speak. Please read the replies to Darth Reagan that appear shortly after his question.
Scientifically speaking, it wouldn't be the light of the first sun, but the light of the explosion that started the Big Bang.
Theologically, I'd say the Light of God, but the Big Bang could be the physical manifestation of the Light of God.... I haven't really thought about it, though, one way or another.
Hey, God did it; it's His light.
Stephen Hawking makes some interesting references to this concept in "A Brief History of Time". He claims that as the physicists on the cutting edge of cosmic theory get closer and closer to the so-called "beginning of time" and look further into the evasive "singularity" theories the more convinced they become that everything is too nice and neat to be purely accidental. Contrary to what many may believe, he claims, individuals at that level of science are not as dismissive of a "guiding hand" in creation as many laymen might think. Perhaps this is why many in the field describe the search for the moment of the Big bang to be trying to "read the mind of G-d."
Interesting.
Ditto! The Big Bang Theory is in nearly complete agreement with the account given in Genesis!
For many nothing existed. If something existed then you run into the problem that not everything is under God's control. Without a long explanation you end up with two equal forces of good and evil without any clear way of determining which is which. It becomes a theological mess.
For me, its a big warning when any religious person starts to opine that God is on same plane as evil. Its a set up for the religious person to have control over others.
I think my question wasn't complete. If there was no "before", then what are the leading non-religious based hypotheses as to how it began?
Even if the laws of the universe were different, it's still "something from nothing". There appears to be no way around that. (Kind of like the "God just was" explanation.)
If there are no good explanations, the Big Bang theory's not very satisfying. It only defers the question and pushes what we don't know back to an earlier point.
We could even say that this is a middle ground, some place for creationists and evolutionist to come together, and recognize that they don't have to be at odds from the start.
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