Hubble Extreme Deep Field

[Trinnity]

They can now see back to 500 million years after the big bang. When the Webb telescope is launched sometime in this decade (I hope!!!) it will be able to see back to the beginning or near it, and in much faster time than Hubble. WOW, I can't wait!


Hubble astronomers capture deepest view yet of night sky
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/sep/26/hubble-astronomers-deepest-view-night-sky)
Piecing together 10 years of Hubble space telescope (http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/hubble-space-telescope) images, astronomers on Tuesday unveiled the deepest view yet of a small sliver of the night sky, revealing a kaleidoscope of galaxies and other celestial objects.
The Hubble eXtreme Deep Field, or XDF, adds another 5,500 galaxies to Hubble's 2003 and 2004 view into a tiny patch of the farthest universe.
Hubble returned to the same target more than 50 times over the past decade, racking up an additional 2m seconds of exposure time. The most distant objects found date back to about 500m years after the universe's formation some 13.7bn years ago.
(more at link)

Great video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-mwfUr-3Xc

[Chris]

Another piece on that, Ultra-Distant Galaxy Discovered Amidst Cosmic 'Dark Ages': May Be Oldest Galaxy Ever (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/09/120919135419.htm). Explains gravitational lensing:
Objects at these extreme distances are mostly beyond the detection sensitivity of today's largest telescopes. To catch sight of these early, distant galaxies, astronomers rely on "gravitational lensing." In this phenomenon -- predicted by Albert Einstein a century ago -- the gravity of foreground objects warps and magnifies the light from background objects. A massive galaxy cluster situated between our galaxy and the early galaxy magnified the latter's light, brightening the remote object some 15 times and bringing it into view.

[Trinnity]

Wow that's cool, Chris. I wondered about gravitational lensing but hadn't gotten around to researching it.

[Chris]

Interesting how gravitational lensing counteracts to a degree the ever shrinking event horizon cause by the accelerating expansion of the universe. Fascinating stuff.

[Canadianeye]

Extremely interesting. I kind of lose my train of thought in comprehending what they discuss....but I get glimmers of it that make sense.

[Trinnity]

Interesting how gravitational lensing counteracts to a degree the ever shrinking event horizon cause by the accelerating expansion of the universe. Fascinating stuff.Well now, that went right over my head... :laugh:

[Captain Obvious]

Interesting how gravitational lensing counteracts to a degree the ever shrinking event horizon cause by the accelerating expansion of the universe. Fascinating stuff.

The event horizon being the continuum of the speed of light (and hence visibility), right?

[Chris]

Hmm, ok, how far back in time we can see is limited by space, time and speed of light. That limit is the cosmic event horizon. The universe is expanding, thus the event horizon is shrinking as time goes by. And it's expanding at an accelerating rate. So the event horizon is shrinking faster and faster. So we're able to see less and less. In effect the stars are disappearing from our sight and telescopes.

Gravitational lensing counteracts that, like a magnifying glass, it brings those events closer.

Here's an explanation from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observable_universe

http://i.snag.gy/M1BjN.jpg
"An example of one of the most common misconceptions about the size of the observable universe. Despite the fact that the universe is 13.7 billion years old, the distance to the edge of the observable universe is not 13.7 billion light-years, because the universe is expanding."

[Chris]

The event horizon being the continuum of the speed of light (and hence visibility), right?

Yes, visibility, how far back in time and distance we can see. It's like the curvature of the earth creating an event horizon on what we can see in line of sight, if the earth expanded, we'd be able to see less.

[Trinnity]

Hmm, ok, how far back in time we can see is limited by space, time and speed of light. That limit is the cosmic event horizon. The universe is expanding, thus the event horizon is shrinking as time goes by. And it's expanding at an accelerating rate. So the event horizon is shrinking faster and faster. So we're able to see less and less. In effect the stars are disappearing from our sight and telescopes.

Gravitational lensing counteracts that, like a magnifying glass, it brings those events closer.
Okay, THAT I understand. I was confused because I was thinking of the even horizon associated with black holes. Thanks.

[Chris]

Okay, THAT I understand. I was confused because I was thinking of the even horizon associated with black holes. Thanks.

Yep, there's that too! I'll let you explain that one!! :-)

[Chris]

Wandering a bit off topic, but recent news re black hole event horizons:
For the first time, scientists have peered to the edge of a colossal black hole and measured the point of no return for matter.

A black hole has a boundary called an event horizon. Anything that falls within a black hole's event horizon — be it stars, gas, or even light — can never escape.

...Using a new observatory called the Event Horizon Telescope, which links up radio dishes in Hawaii, Arizona and California, astronomers measured that the innermost possible orbit for matter around the black hole is roughly 5.5 times the size of the black hole's event horizon.

This innermost orbit is about five times the size of the solar system, or 750 times the distance from Earth to the sun, Doeleman told SPACE.com. The distance between the Earth and the sun is nearly 93 million miles (150 million kilometers).
...

Read more @ Mouth of Giant Black Hole Measured for First Time (http://www.space.com/17800-giant-black-hole-mouth-measured.html).


So can information escape the event horizon of a black hole? (Someone recently posted the answer to this on the forum, it involved a bet.)

[Peter1469]

I believe that under quantum theory "things" can escape the event horizon. I am not sure if that has any practicle application for complex systems like humans, planets, and spaceships.

[Deadwood]

Hmm, ok, how far back in time we can see is limited by space, time and speed of light. That limit is the cosmic event horizon. The universe is expanding, thus the event horizon is shrinking as time goes by. And it's expanding at an accelerating rate. So the event horizon is shrinking faster and faster. So we're able to see less and less. In effect the stars are disappearing from our sight and telescopes.

Gravitational lensing counteracts that, like a magnifying glass, it brings those events closer.

Here's an explanation from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observable_universe

http://i.snag.gy/M1BjN.jpg
"An example of one of the most common misconceptions about the size of the observable universe. Despite the fact that the universe is 13.7 billion years old, the distance to the edge of the observable universe is not 13.7 billion light-years, because the universe is expanding."

OK, that did it for me....

It's 10 AM here...cartoons are on and Roadrunner I can understand.

There was a film called "Event Horizon"...

I don't think I understood that either..


And what about Pisces? I am a Pisces, are we affected by this?

[Trinnity]

I'm really confused now.
"the innermost possible orbit for matter around the black hole is roughly 5.5 times the size of the black hole's event horizon." Are they saying there are 2 boundaries?

[Chris]

Not sure but think the innermost orbit is the point where matter starts getting sucked in. Event horizon is pint at which matter sucked in can no longer be detected.


Here is Wile E. Coyote at that innermost orbit:

http://i.snag.gy/A8qQC.jpg

Here he is disappearing into the event horizon:

http://i.snag.gy/Ho1GR.jpg

[Chris]

In this article, Astronomers Measure The Radius Of A Black Hole (http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2012/09/29/astronomers-measure-the-radius-of-a-black-hole/), they refer to that innermost orbit as the black hole's accretion disk: "After careful calculation and observation, they determined that the accretion disk is about 5.5 times the size of the black hole itself, giving them an estimate of the radius."

[Peter1469]

As far as black holes are concerned the event horizon the the point in space where the gravitational well of the black holes will trap and pull in even light.

In general terms, the event horizon is, I believe, the point that you can't see passed, because of the speed of light.

[IGetItAlready]

Back in the day I misunderstood some things I had heard about Hubble. They were talking about looking back in time and how light images are projected into space and they said something specifically about looking back to the time of Christ.

I attempted to explain all this to my roomy who was studying geological engineering and the way I explained it, Hubble could actually see faster than the speed of light. Therefore it would visualize past those light images from Christ's time and actually observe light images from earth from thousands of years ago.

Unfortunately, he proceeded to attempt to explain all this to a professor during a class.
Needless to say, he came home from class hella pissed.

In my defense, we did hella acid and smoked a ton of weed back then so he should have known better. :D

[Chris]

Hubble could actually see faster than the speed of light.

That's what I think in effect gravitational lensing does. See earlier in thread.

[IGetItAlready]

Very cool.
So I was simply a couple decades ahead of the curve.
So I've STILL never been wrong!!!
Yeaaaa me. :D