GogoJF wrote:
On Sep 19, 5:14 pm, Yousuf Khan wrote:
Astronomers uncover oldest galaxy far, far away |
smh.com.auhttp://m.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/astronomers-uncover-oldest-ga...

What about those stars, star systems, or galaxies in the background of
this picture. How far away do you think they are?

The journalists used an image of a nearby galaxy as an illustration. In the
actual images shown in the Nature article, the galaxy MACS 1149-JD is just a
blob of a few pixels extent. As the object is visible only because it is
gravitationally lensed (hence looks much brighter than it would otherwise
appear) all the other objects in the field are either nearer galaxies or
foreground stars in our galaxy.

What is really interesting is that the spectrum (or, rather, multi-colour
photometry) shows that it is a starburst galaxy and an analysis of the
stellar populations implies that the stars in the galaxy were mostly formed
within 200 MYr of the Big Bang, although that conclusion is only 2-sigma
confidence. The implication is that galaxies were forming and stars were
forming only 200 MYr after the BB.

--
Mike Dworetsky

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