Posted on 01/10/2002 7:18:34 AM PST by JediGirl
WASHINGTON (AP) — An outburst of star formation ended a half billion years of utter darkness following the Big Bang, the theoretical start of the universe, according to a study that challenges old ideas about the birth of the first stars.
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 that burst to life and pierced 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 5 billion years later.
``Star formation took place early and very rapidly,'' Lanzetta said Tuesday at a National Aeronautics and Space Administration news conference. ``Star formation was 10 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. 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 the star-forming activity was.
``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 areas became more dense with elements than others, forming gravitational centers that attracted more and more matter. Eventually, 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 where we can not see at all,'' she said.
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On the Net:
Hubble images: http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pr/2002/02
Also: http://hubble.stsci.edu/go/news
That would be a major turnoff to religion for me.
?
KJV says:
"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness."
The KJV language seems to match this recent finding rather well. The earlier observation had stars gradually forming over a very long period of time. This later observation has them forming at once, but still some time after the act of "creation".
I notice KJV still differentiates between "God" and "Spirit of God", and so far there doesn't seem to be any conflict between the revelation and the observation.
Here's a thought for you - when you see evidence of design, be open to the inference of a Designer.
Don't make me come down there...
God
So Jimer, you place your faith in the eternity of matter?
Do you believe your assertion is in any way provable, or that there is even any circumstatial evidence possible for it?
What could survive the singularity of a black hole, prior to the singularity?
The Bible gives a theory of the earth's (and man's) origin, which has survived 2000 years of scientific inquiry and study. Over the past 2000 years, new discoveries have been made only to realize that the Bible predicted it long ago.
Flame away, I will not stay long. These crevo threads are all the same: the same cast of characters spouting the same lines over and over. I do have respect for several of my opponents (RadioAstronomer, Physicist, ThinkPlease), even made friends with a few, although we will never agree on this matter. I can tell you that you will probably see (in addition to those who have already posted) medved, PatrickHenry, 1/1,000,000%, Exnihilo, Nebulis, RadioAstronomer, ThinkPlease, and OWK (not all inclusive) posting on this thread sooner or later (sorry if I misspelled a few).
Asbestos underwear = on
The universe started from a single point in space.
We, as a part of the universe have been travelling from this central point for more or less 15 billion years.
Astronomers say they can see things 14 billion light-years (9.46x10^15 meters) away.
This means that there must be 14 billion light-years of distance between us and the object being observed.
How could we possibly be that distant from any point in space unless we are ourselves, or the object in question is travelling at approximately the speed of light? Another option might be that both we and the object are travelling at half the speed of light in opposite directions.
This has never made sense to me.
Thank you for the compliment!
The ancient Greeks found the concept of trying to explain "Nothingness" a paradox.
Steve Hawking said, " Even where there is nothing, something is happening."
(An aside: The last quote sounds like Windows, doesn't it?)
FR proves that we come from a wide variety of perspectives, but we can unite under the Jeffersonian principle that: "The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." --Thomas Jefferson to Edward Carrington, 1788. ME 7:37
The universe started from a single point in space.
We, as a part of the universe have been travelling from this central point for more or less 15 billion years.
Astronomers say they can see things 14 billion light-years (9.46x10^15 meters) away.
This means that there must be 14 billion light-years of distance between us and the object being observed.
How could we possibly be that distant from any point in space unless we are ourselves, or the object in question is travelling at approximately the speed of light? Another option might be that both we and the object are travelling at half the speed of light in opposite directions.
This has never made sense to me.
Yes, this idea is hard to grasp. Imagine an uninflated balloon. Put dots all over it with a marker. Inflate it. All the dots get further apart. Where's the center? On the surface of the balloon, there is none. The same thing is theorized to have happened with our universe in 3 or 4 dimensions, since the big bang. Space actually expands. Our distance from all stars and galaxies increases, just as the dots on the balloon are all further from each other. All we can say is the most distant objects are 15 billion light years away, and that far back in time. You can't tell the objective center from any point.
I think the result in the article is intuitive, based upon what we know of star formation and the early universe. Stars need some density of gas to form. The universe was denser in the beginning. Q.E.D. the rate of star formation was far higher in the past. What is surprising is that anyone ever thought it was a constant rate.
My little contribution to the ID discussion is: if the universe started from a singularity, why did the Big Bang happen? Why didn't stay a black hole? What force would be great enough to overcome the gravity of all the universe? That's my proof, or argument, for the existance of God.
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