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
The only thing that saddens me is that they almost never broach Kaluza-Klein or the effect of choice of coordinates in multiple dimensions.
And that, of course, changes everything.
Ever her of the inflationary theory?
We are not moving, the space between us and the distant galaxies is expanding.
The expansion of space is not limited to light speed.
So one day a couple of the universes bumped into each other, heat was created and that precipitated the hadrons.
We live in one of those infinite, ageless universes. We are adjacent to all the others as well.
There is no beginning beyond the creation. Everything we have observed is merely the operation of a very small part of it. At the moment we are basking in the light which was created AFTER the first creation.
In fact, the "stars" we see today were mostly all created long after the original creation of the very large hydrogen fusion reactions that created the heavier elements found in all of today's stars.
The various multi-verse theories only try to account for the way a particular universe came into being, not how it evolved.
I don’t think that I have heard of the particular theory that you describe:
The latest one has the multi-verse composed of an infinite number of infinite universes with 4 dimensions. They form the border of the 5th dimension, which is finite. The rest of the dimensions are "rolled up". They may provide the bounds for the hadrons (whenever they exist).
So one day a couple of the universes bumped into each other, heat was created and that precipitated the hadrons
The last theory I read up on suggested that our universe has 11 dimensions, with most of them “rolled up” so that we cannot see them. When a black hole forms in our universe, the 4 dimensions that we know just kinda roll up so that we can’t see them anymore. But nothing leaves our universe.
This one draws on string theory, but they article puts in a couple of reasons of exactly why the inflationary model is inadequate - this has to do with observations made recently. Remember, just one observation that doesn't match a model and you have to toss out the model!
I was writing you a reply when I decided to do some searches on the expansion rate of the universe. After reading what I found, I figured it is definitely too late at the moment for me to be thinking about such things. It's a great link though.
Space is a vacuum, right? Essentially a large void of nothing between the planets and galaxies. In empty space there is no gas, solid, or liquid. So, how can it be expanding? Gases expand with increased temperature or lower pressure. How can nothing expand?
This just seems to fly in the face of what we know about the physics of gases and vacuums.
Just listing you in the cast of characters most likely to show up on this thread...
Good to hear from ya =8^)
Ordinarily we don't notice this.
Yes...
However, that vacuum exists in a sea of forces.
Right...
They are there whether or not there is anything for them to act on.
Agreed...
Then there are virtual particles popping up all the time, and then disappearing.
Ordinarily we don't notice this.
Here's where you lose me. Where the heck does this info come from? What the heck are "virtual particles" and how do we know they pop up and disappear all the time? Are you implying spontaneous, rapid generation and disintigration of matter?
Sounds to me like something else physicists have pulled out of thin air (pun intended) in order to make their theories seem plausible.
I'm guessing that these "virtual particles" (read = particles that don't really exist, but we need them to make our theory work, much like the Oort cloud) are essential to the working of the theory, am I right?
After you explain all of this, please explain how it allows a vacuum to violate the rules of physics (i.e. how does nothing expand?).
A gambler hires a Mathematician, a Chemist, and a Physicist to help him devise a method to pick horses. After a few weeks work, they give their reports:Hope y'all have a healthy sense of humor...Mathematician: We don't know why horses win, but we can estimate their chances. I propose doing a multiple-regression computation with horse age, jockey, track condition, last race, and a few more things as independent variables. We should be able to rank horses as to their chances to win.
Chemist: The horse that's in the best physical condition should win. I propose to take hair clippings, urine samples, saliva samples, blood samples, before a race and determine which horse is in the best shape.
Physicist: Consider a spherical horse....
It is an unavoidable consequence of quantum field theory.
What the heck are "virtual particles"
Virtual particles are particles that are emitted by the vacuum and reabsorbed. This is permissible so long as the amount of energy "borrowed" is paid back in a time brief enough so that the energy times the time is less than Planck's constant over 2 pi. This is below the resolution of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, so it does not constitute a violation of any classical conservation law.
and how do we know they pop up and disappear all the time?
Because we can measure them. For example, we can see that virtual electrons and positrons are there, because the vacuum is electrically polarizable. Moreover, it's polarizable in a highly specific way, that has been experimentally confirmed to more than 10 decimal places.
Are you implying spontaneous, rapid generation and disintigration of matter?
Sounds to me like something else physicists have pulled out of thin air (pun intended) in order to make their theories seem plausible.
No, it's something their theories told them should be there, and which to their amazement their experiments confirmed.
I'm guessing that these "virtual particles" (read = particles that don't really exist, but we need them to make our theory work, much like the Oort cloud) are essential to the working of the theory, am I right?
I'm guessing by your tone that virtual particles constitute a threat to your Weltanschauung. No matter; the universe is the way it is, and not how any of us would wish it to be.
After you explain all of this, please explain how it allows a vacuum to violate the rules of physics (i.e. how does nothing expand?).
First of all, that's not a rule of physics, and second of all, the vacuum isn't "nothing". It's a tremendously complicated thing, actually.
The Oort cloud is real. :)
Physicist could answer this better than I, but I believe the answer is no. Energy must be conserved.
Isn't that what he was saying? <g>
Ah, now you sound like Governor Davis.
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