Hobby-Eberly Telescope Helps Astronomers Learn Secrets of One ofUniverse's Most Distant Objects (Forwarded)

McDonald Observatory
University of Texas

Contact: Rebecca Johnson
ph: 512-475-6763 fax: 512-471-5060

08 June 2007

Hobby-Eberly Telescope Helps Astronomers Learn Secrets of One of
Universe's Most Distant Objects

FORT DAVIS, Texas -- Astronomers have used the 9.2-meter Hobby-Eberly
Telescope (HET) at McDonald Observatory to confirm one of the most distant
known objects in the universe. The object is a quasar -- an extremely
bright galaxy nucleus powered by matter falling into a supermassive black
hole at its heart -- that is 12.7 billion light-years away. Because light
travels at a finite speed, we are seeing this quasar as it appeared 12.7
billion years ago, when the universe was just 7 percent of its present
age.

The object was discovered by the Canada-France High-z Quasar Survey, which
has been undertaken by an international group using the
Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope on Mauna Kea, Hawaii. The survey team,
headed by Chris Willott of the University of Ottawa, presented their
results on four extremely distant quasars, including this one, this week
at the annual conference of the Canadian Astronomical Society in Kingston,
Ontario.

It is particularly important to find such distant quasars because they can
be used to probe a time in cosmic history called the "Era of
Re-ionization," said Gary Hill, a member of the survey team and McDonald
Observatory's Chief Astronomer. During this time, he said, the earliest
stars were forming and beginning to turn the universe from mostly neutral
atoms to mostly ionized (where they have lost their electrons due to
ultraviolet radiation). The era lasted about half a billion years.

He explained that the distant quasars are seen early enough in the history
of the universe that they shine through regions of space that were not yet
fully ionized. Some of the quasar's light is absorbed by any clouds of
still-neutral hydrogen. So, by studying the quasar's light today,
astronomers can gauge what types of gas clouds the light has passed
through on its way to Earth -- providing a record of when in time and
where in space these gas clouds lived.

Fewer than 10 such distant quasars were previously known, Hill said, so
"every one of these counts. Every one you add gives you another line of
sight," -- a way to probe a different part of the universe and study the
inhomogeneous re-ionization process.

Follow-up observations of this specific quasar (with the somewhat
difficult moniker "CFHQS 1641+3755") were first made in the infrared with
the 2.7-meter Harlan J. Smith Telescope at McDonald Observatory to
indicate that it is probably a quasar, and not a brown dwarf (both objects
are point-like and red in color in photos).

That accomplished, it was then sent to be studied by HET. The large
light-gathering power of this telescope, the world's fourth-largest,
combined with its Marcario Low Resolution Spectrograph, allowed
astronomers to measure a spectrum of the quasar and calculate its distance
of 12.7 billion light-years (in astronomical jargon, this equates to a
redshift of z = 6.04).

The difficult HET observation was carried out by Michael Gully-Santiago, a
college student astronomer from Boston University spending the summer at
McDonald Observatory. Gully-Santiago was taking part in the observatory's
Research Experiences for Undergraduates program, which is funded by the
National Science Foundation.

The group plans to continue following up quasars from the Canada-France
survey with HET, Hill said. They have submitted their results to the
Astronomical Journal for publication. A copy of this paper is available
online at
http://arxiv.org/abs/0706.0914

The Hobby-Eberly Telescope is a joint project of The University of Texas
at Austin, The Pennsylvania State University, Stanford University,
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München and Georg-August-Unversität
Göttingen.

-- END --

Note to Editors : For more information contact Gary Hill at 512-471-1477.

IMAGE CAPTIONS:

[Image 1:
http://mcdonaldobservatory.org/news/...ge.php?id=108]
Spectrum of a Distant Quasar

This chart shows the light given off by superheated material spiraling
into a black hole at the heart of a galaxy 12.7 billion light-years away.
This active galaxy, called a ³quasar,² is known as CFHQS 1641+3755.
Because its light has traveled so far to us, it has lost energy, causing
wavelengths to stretch. The light from neutral hydrogen gas, indicated by
the label ³Ly alpha² here, has stretched from a wavelength of 1216
Angstroms all the way to 8500 Angstroms. (For comparison, the human eye
can only see light of wavelengths up to 6500 Angstroms.) The magnitude of
this stretch, or ³redshift,² is what allows astronomers to calculate the
quasar¹s distance. This quasar is one of only a handful known at such a
great distance. This spectrum was taken with Marcario Low Resolution
Spectrograph on the Hobby-Eberly Telescope at McDonald Observatory.
Credit: Gary Hill/Tim Jones/McDonald Observatory. Credit: Gary Hill/Tim
Jones/McDonald Obs.

[Image 2:
http://mcdonaldobservatory.org/news/...age.php?id=36]
Hobby-Eberly Telescope, Aerial View. Credit: Marty Harris/McDonald
Observatory.

I notice the following article in sci.astro.research about observed
very distant quasars (these could be related somehow to "neutrino
stars"
which are "cores of black-holes"?):

----COPY BELOW-----------
Path: g2news1.google.com!news3.google.com!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!
individual.net!not-for-mail
From: jacob navia
Newsgroups: sci.astro.research
Subject: Quasar found 13 billion years away
Date: Fri, 08 Jun 2007 14:56:26 GMT
Lines: 18
Approved: (jt)
Message-ID:
X-Trace: individual.net
LibkuaSDDjghA3Vi20rAeQEBqWjsuxbG5zUM5GxnqjXHOsxuVl REcTIAkn
X-Posting-Tool: modtool v2.1

John Hutchings et al has found a quasar (the most distant known)
at approx 13 billion years, z=6.43.
http://xxx.lanl.gov/PS_cache/arxiv/p...706.0914v1.pdf

Since the mass of the quasar is 500 million suns, and it has formed
in about 500 million years, it must have swallowed 1 sun/year
more or less.

Cited by Space.com, Hutchings says:
"It is puzzling how such enormous black holes are found so early on
in
the universe ... because we believe that black holes take a long time
to
grow," said team member John Hutchings of the Herzberg Institute of
Astrophysics.
http://www.space.com/scienceastronom...blackhole.html

Another data point. The universe just a few hundred million years
after the supposed "bang" looks more and more exactly like our own
neighborhood.

-------COPY ABOVE----------

I think that present standard theory of formation of galaxies
is all the way from "DOWN UNDER" (= "päälaellaan" in finnish),
because there is possible NO "CUT OFF in distribution of galaxies
or quasars towards of the Big bang "start" ?

These distant observations are going to point more and more
in this direction ?

(In other words said there is possible NO "DARK AGES" mentioned
in reference text rererenced in above article
http://xxx.lanl.gov/PS_cache/arxiv/p...706.0914v1.pdf ?
This same article is in reference
http://arxiv.org/abs/0706.0914. )


Hannu


On Jun 12, 6:32 am, Andrew Yee wrote:
McDonald Observatory
University of Texas

Contact: Rebecca Johnson
ph: 512-475-6763 fax: 512-471-5060

08 June 2007

Hobby-Eberly Telescope Helps Astronomers Learn Secrets of One of
Universe's Most Distant Objects

FORT DAVIS, Texas -- Astronomers have used the 9.2-meter Hobby-Eberly
Telescope (HET) at McDonald Observatory to confirm one of the most distant
known objects in the universe. The object is a quasar -- an extremely
bright galaxy nucleus powered by matter falling into a supermassive black
hole at its heart -- that is 12.7 billion light-years away. Because light
travels at a finite speed, we are seeing this quasar as it appeared 12.7
billion years ago, when the universe was just 7 percent of its present
age.

The object was discovered by the Canada-France High-z Quasar Survey, which
has been undertaken by an international group using the
Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope on Mauna Kea, Hawaii. The survey team,
headed by Chris Willott of the University of Ottawa, presented their
results on four extremely distant quasars, including this one, this week
at the annual conference of the Canadian Astronomical Society in Kingston,
Ontario.

It is particularly important to find such distant quasars because they can
be used to probe a time in cosmic history called the "Era of
Re-ionization," said Gary Hill, a member of the survey team and McDonald
Observatory's Chief Astronomer. During this time, he said, the earliest
stars were forming and beginning to turn the universe from mostly neutral
atoms to mostly ionized (where they have lost their electrons due to
ultraviolet radiation). The era lasted about half a billion years.

He explained that the distant quasars are seen early enough in the history
of the universe that they shine through regions of space that were not yet
fully ionized. Some of the quasar's light is absorbed by any clouds of
still-neutral hydrogen. So, by studying the quasar's light today,
astronomers can gauge what types of gas clouds the light has passed
through on its way to Earth -- providing a record of when in time and
where in space these gas clouds lived.

Fewer than 10 such distant quasars were previously known, Hill said, so
"every one of these counts. Every one you add gives you another line of
sight," -- a way to probe a different part of the universe and study the
inhomogeneous re-ionization process.

Follow-up observations of this specific quasar (with the somewhat
difficult moniker "CFHQS 1641+3755") were first made in the infrared with
the 2.7-meter Harlan J. Smith Telescope at McDonald Observatory to
indicate that it is probably a quasar, and not a brown dwarf (both objects
are point-like and red in color in photos).

That accomplished, it was then sent to be studied by HET. The large
light-gathering power of this telescope, the world's fourth-largest,
combined with its Marcario Low Resolution Spectrograph, allowed
astronomers to measure a spectrum of the quasar and calculate its distance
of 12.7 billion light-years (in astronomical jargon, this equates to a
redshift of z = 6.04).

The difficult HET observation was carried out by Michael Gully-Santiago, a
college student astronomer from Boston University spending the summer at
McDonald Observatory. Gully-Santiago was taking part in the observatory's
Research Experiences for Undergraduates program, which is funded by the
National Science Foundation.

The group plans to continue following up quasars from the Canada-France
survey with HET, Hill said. They have submitted their results to the
Astronomical Journal for publication. A copy of this paper is available
online at
http://arxiv.org/abs/0706.0914

The Hobby-Eberly Telescope is a joint project of The University of Texas
at Austin, The Pennsylvania State University, Stanford University,
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München and Georg-August-Unversität
Göttingen.

-- END --

Note to Editors : For more information contact Gary Hill at 512-471-1477.

IMAGE CAPTIONS:

[Image 1:http://mcdonaldobservatory.org/news/...ge.php?id=108]
Spectrum of a Distant Quasar

This chart shows the light given off by superheated material spiraling
into a black hole at the heart of a galaxy 12.7 billion light-years away.
This active galaxy, called a ³quasar,² is known as CFHQS 1641+3755.
Because its light has traveled so far to us, it has lost energy, causing
wavelengths to stretch. The light from neutral hydrogen gas, indicated by
the label ³Ly alpha² here, has stretched from a wavelength of 1216
Angstroms all the way to 8500 Angstroms. (For comparison, the human eye
can only see light of wavelengths up to 6500 Angstroms.) The magnitude of
this stretch, or ³redshift,² is what allows astronomers to calculate the
quasar¹s distance. This quasar is one of only a handful known at such a
great distance. This spectrum was taken with Marcario Low Resolution
Spectrograph on the Hobby-Eberly Telescope at McDonald Observatory.
Credit: Gary Hill/Tim Jones/McDonald Observatory. Credit: Gary Hill/Tim
Jones/McDonald Obs.

[Image 2:http://mcdonaldobservatory.org/news/...age.php?id=36]
Hobby-Eberly Telescope, Aerial View. Credit: Marty Harris/McDonald
Observatory.