HUBBLE UNCOVERS A BABY GALAXY IN A GROWN-UP UNIVERSE (STScI-PR04-35)

EMBARGOED UNTIL: 12:01 am (EST) December 1, 2004

CONTACT:
Ray Villard
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD
(Phone: 410-338-4514; E-mail: )

Fariss Samarrai
University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA
(Phone: 434-924-3778; E-mail: )

PRESS RELEASE NO.: STScI-PR04-35

HUBBLE UNCOVERS A BABY GALAXY IN A GROWN-UP UNIVERSE

Scientists using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have measured the
age of what may be the youngest galaxy ever seen in the universe.
By cosmological standards it is a mere toddler seemingly out of place
among the grown-up galaxies around it. Called I Zwicky 18, it may be
as young as 500 million years old (so recent an epoch that complex
life had already begun to appear on Earth). Our Milky Way galaxy by
contrast is over 20 times older, or about 12 billion years old, the
typical age of galaxies across the universe. This "late-life" galaxy
offers a rare glimpse into what the first diminutive galaxies in the
early universe look like.

To see and read more, please visit:
http://hubblesite.org/news/2004/35

For more information, please contact:
Trinh Thuan, University of Virginia, Department of Astronomy,
Box 38918, Univ. Station, Charlottesville, VA 22903-0818,
(phone) 434-924-4894,(e-mail)

Goran Ostlin, Stockholm Observatory, Institute for Astronomy,
AlbaNova, SCFAB, Roslagstullsbacken 21, SE-106 91 Stockholm,
Sweden, (phone) +46-8-5537-8513, (e-mail)

The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) is operated by the
Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc. (AURA),
for NASA, under contract with the Goddard Space Flight Center,
Greenbelt, MD. The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international
cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA).

To receive STScI Inbox Astronomy: News Alert messages, visit
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Very sad, that Nasa no longer supports the Hubble.
Perhaps we could take up a collection,
and give a Celestron8 to the two guys
on the space station.

T.

INBOX ASTRONOMY: NEWS ALERT wrote:

EMBARGOED UNTIL: 12:01 am (EST) December 1, 2004

CONTACT:
Ray Villard
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD
(Phone: 410-338-4514; E-mail: )

Fariss Samarrai
University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA
(Phone: 434-924-3778; E-mail: )

PRESS RELEASE NO.: STScI-PR04-35

HUBBLE UNCOVERS A BABY GALAXY IN A GROWN-UP UNIVERSE

Scientists using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have measured the
age of what may be the youngest galaxy ever seen in the universe.
By cosmological standards it is a mere toddler seemingly out of place
among the grown-up galaxies around it. Called I Zwicky 18, it may be
as young as 500 million years old (so recent an epoch that complex
life had already begun to appear on Earth). Our Milky Way galaxy by
contrast is over 20 times older, or about 12 billion years old, the
typical age of galaxies across the universe. This "late-life" galaxy
offers a rare glimpse into what the first diminutive galaxies in the
early universe look like.

To see and read more, please visit:
http://hubblesite.org/news/2004/35

For more information, please contact:
Trinh Thuan, University of Virginia, Department of Astronomy,
Box 38918, Univ. Station, Charlottesville, VA 22903-0818,
(phone) 434-924-4894,(e-mail)

Goran Ostlin, Stockholm Observatory, Institute for Astronomy,
AlbaNova, SCFAB, Roslagstullsbacken 21, SE-106 91 Stockholm,
Sweden, (phone) +46-8-5537-8513, (e-mail)

The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) is operated by the
Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc. (AURA),
for NASA, under contract with the Goddard Space Flight Center,
Greenbelt, MD. The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international
cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA).

To receive STScI Inbox Astronomy: News Alert messages, visit
http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/mailing.php or send an e-mail
to . Leave the subject line blank, and
type the word SUBSCRIBE in the body of the message. The system
will respond with instructions on how to confirm your subscription.
Once you follow the instructions, you will receive news alerts as
they are issued. Alerts will be sent to the e-mail address you use
to subscribe. To unsubscribe, send e-mail to .
Leave the subject line blank, and type the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the
body of the message. Please unsubscribe using the email account that
you used to subscribe to the list.

There already IS a scope on the ISS and it's going to be updated with a
newer OTA sometime next year.


--


The Forgotten
http://home.inreach.com/starlord/forgotten.htm
SIAR
www.starlords.org
Telescope Buyers FAQ
http://home.inreach.com/starlord
Car Fund Page Update
http://www.bishopcarfund.netfirms.com/

"Tequila" wrote in message
...
Very sad, that Nasa no longer supports the Hubble.
Perhaps we could take up a collection,
and give a Celestron8 to the two guys
on the space station.

T.




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In article ,
INBOX ASTRONOMY: NEWS ALERT writes:
Scientists using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have measured the
age of what may be the youngest galaxy ever seen in the universe.
By cosmological standards it is a mere toddler seemingly out of place
among the grown-up galaxies around it. Called I Zwicky 18, it may be
as young as 500 million years old

What they mean, of course, is that the _stars_ in this galaxy are
only 500 Gyr old. Presumably the gas cloud from which the stars
formed has been around a lot longer.

The approximate age of the stars in I Zw 18 has been known for at
least a decade, but the HST observations (judging by the longer press
release at
http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/new.../2004/35/text/ )
have given a better census of the individual stars and thus put the
age on firmer ground. In particular, the absence of red giants says
there is no significant population of old stars. I haven't checked
the journal article to see how the new limit on population compares
to older ones from infrared photometry of integrated light.

So far as I know, there is no explanation of why this particular gas
cloud "waited around" so long before forming stars. Maybe just luck;
I don't know any other examples, so it's a rare situation, whatever
the reason.

--
Steve Willner Phone 617-495-7123
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA
(Please email your reply if you want to be sure I see it; include a
valid Reply-To address to receive an acknowledgement. Commercial
email may be sent to your ISP.)

Steve Willner wrote:
In article ,
INBOX ASTRONOMY: NEWS ALERT writes:

Scientists using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have measured the
age of what may be the youngest galaxy ever seen in the universe.
By cosmological standards it is a mere toddler seemingly out of place
among the grown-up galaxies around it. Called I Zwicky 18, it may be
as young as 500 million years old


What they mean, of course, is that the _stars_ in this galaxy are
only 500 Gyr old.

"Only" 500 Gyr? ;-)

SCNR...

[snip]


Bye,
Bjoern

Steve Willner wrote in message
...
In article ,
INBOX ASTRONOMY: NEWS ALERT writes:
Scientists using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have measured the
age of what may be the youngest galaxy ever seen in the universe.
By cosmological standards it is a mere toddler seemingly out of place
among the grown-up galaxies around it. Called I Zwicky 18, it may be
as young as 500 million years old

What they mean, of course, is that the _stars_ in this galaxy are
only 500 Gyr old. Presumably the gas cloud from which the stars
formed has been around a lot longer.

Guess again. I Zwicky 18 has been a thorn in the side of Big-Bang
cosmologists for a long time. I Zw 18 has an He ratio far too low to
support the Big Bang hypothesis. Hence it is usually simply removed from
Big Bang data collection. See, for example, the thread "French's Primordial
Study and Schramm & Turner, 1997," on sci.physics and sci.astro:
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=10....supernews.com

The approximate age of the stars in I Zw 18 has been known for at
least a decade, but the HST observations (judging by the longer press
release at
http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/new.../2004/35/text/ )
have given a better census of the individual stars and thus put the
age on firmer ground. In particular, the absence of red giants says
there is no significant population of old stars.

I'm not sure how this follows. Red giant stages exist for all stars. And
some stars have lifetimes less than 500 Gyr. Hence, if we don't see red
giants, that seems to be a selection problem.

I haven't checked
the journal article to see how the new limit on population compares
to older ones from infrared photometry of integrated light.

So far as I know, there is no explanation of why this particular gas
cloud "waited around" so long before forming stars. Maybe just luck;
I don't know any other examples, so it's a rare situation, whatever
the reason.

Well, yes it is rare. But it still disproves the big bang, all by its
lonesome. It only takes one "impossible" situation to disprove a theory.

--
greywolf42
ubi dubium ibi libertas
{remove planet for return e-mail}

In article ,
"greywolf42" writes:
I Zw 18 has an He ratio far too low to
support the Big Bang hypothesis.

A quick ADS search finda a paper by Izotov et al., 1999 ApJ 527,
757. Even the Abstract is pretty long, so I won't quote it here, but
anyone interested can find it at
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/np..._key=A ST&amp

(Watch out for line wrapping.)

A brief excerpt from the abstract:

The underlying stellar absorption strongly influences the observed
intensities of He I emission lines in the brightest northwest
component of I Zw 18, and hence this component should not be used
for primordial He abundance determination. The effect of underlying
stellar absorption, though present, is much smaller in the
southeast component. Assuming all systematic uncertainties are
negligible, the He mass fraction Y=0.243+/-0.007 derived in this
component is in excellent agreement with recent measurements by
Izotov & Thuan....

As to the rest, were you misled by my typo on the age?

--
Steve Willner Phone 617-495-7123
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA
(Please email your reply if you want to be sure I see it; include a
valid Reply-To address to receive an acknowledgement. Commercial
email may be sent to your ISP.)