Distant Galaxies Show A Mature Universe Even in Childhood

[Tormod]

Scientists have discovered the most distant massive structure yet detected in the Universe, a fully formed galaxy cluster containing hundreds, if not thousands, of galaxies.

 

lefthttp://hypography.com/gallery/files/5/xmm-newton_distant_galaxies_mature_2_thumb.jpg[/img]The discovery is evidence that the Universe's elegant hierarchal structure of stars, galaxies and clusters formed quickly after the big bang, far earlier than most astronomers thought possible just a few years ago.

 

The discovery was made with the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton Observatory and the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (ESO VLT) in Chile. Dr. Christopher Mullis of the University of Michigan, whose research is supported through NASA XMM-Newton grants, presented this finding at a scientific meeting Tuesday evening in Kona, Hawaii, entitled "The Future of Cosmology with Clusters of Galaxies."

 

"We are quite surprised to see that exquisite structure like this could exist at such early epochs," said Mullis, who is also lead author on a report about this finding in an upcoming issue of The Astrophysical Journal. "We see an entire network of stars and galaxies in place at just a few billion years after the big bang, like a kingdom popping up overnight on Earth."

 

The newly discovered cluster is about 9 billion light years from Earth, a half billion light years farther out than the previous record holder. This means the cluster was mature when the Universe was only 5 billion years old, and that the stars and galaxies formed and assembled into a cluster within only a few billion years. The Universe is now 13.7 billion years old.

 

"We have underestimated how quickly the early Universe matured into its present-day incarnation," said Dr. Piero Rosati at ESO headquarters in Garching, Germany, a co-author on the report. "The Universe grew up fast."

 

The scientists said this discovery might be the tip of the iceberg. Their results are based on a first peek at archived XMM-Newton data from the past four years. Other clusters undoubtedly lie hidden in the data archive waiting to be discovered, they said.

 

Galaxy clusters contain hundreds to thousands of galaxies gravitationally bound to each other. Our Milky Way galaxy resides in a relatively low-density region of the Universe, part of a "local group" of galaxies but apparently not bound to the nearby Virgo cluster. Scientists study the distribution and growth rate of galaxy clusters to understand the overall structure and evolution of the Universe.

 

Most of the ordinary matter in galaxy clusters takes the form of hot, tenuous gas in between galaxies. This gas is invisible to optical telescopes but can be detected with large, orbiting X-ray observatories, such as XMM-Newton. Mullis said that a 12-hour XMM-Newton observation of a nearby galaxy revealed tantalizing evidence of a galaxy cluster far in the background. Knowing where to look, his team used the powerful ESO VLT in the Atacama Desert in Chile to find an optical counterpart.

 

Sure enough, the team found dozens of galaxies associated with this X-ray emission. The VLT data established the distance to the cluster, at a redshift of 1.4, corresponding to about 9 billion light years away. The galaxies were reddish, elliptical types, an indication that they were already several billion years old and filled with older red stars. The cluster itself was largely spherical, a sign that it was well formed.

 

Proto-clusters, which are clusters in the making, have been seen over 10 billion light years away. The new finding is the best evidence yet of when these wild proto-clusters reached maturity. The relative ease of discovery, based on archived data, implies that the team could build a large sample size of exceedingly distant clusters. This would allow scientists to directly test competing theories of structure formation and evolution. The team is currently pursuing detailed follow-up observations from both ground and space-based observatories.

 

"This discovery encourages us to search for additional distant clusters using this same efficient technique," said team member Dr. Hans Bohringer of Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE) in Garching. "It also shows great promise for experiments under construction, such as the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment. Such diligent searching will ultimately place strong constraints on fundamental parameters of the Universe."

 

Other team members include Rene Fassbender and Dr. Peter Schuecker (MPE) and Drs. Axel Schwope and Georg Lamer of the Astrophysical Institute of Potsdam.

 

Source: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

[C1ay]

The discovery is evidence that the Universe's elegant hierarchal structure of stars, galaxies and clusters formed quickly after the big bang, far earlier than most astronomers thought possible just a few years ago.

 

Or, such organized structures really do take eons to develop as previously thought and there wasn't a Big Bang after all.

[Tormod]

Yeah, that was my thought too. Strange that they did not comment on that at all.

[paultrr]

The start of this universe involves quantum effects. In general, and this is well known, we still do not understand enough about this early period to say how fast things would evolve. What we have is a standard model to go by. That model is not complete by any stretch at the present. Given that one simply at best can make conjectures based upon what we know. With the gaps in our knowledge its no wonder our best models don't always jive up with observational data. But making the conjecture this universe is so young one needs to propose a special creation is also based upon just as much speculation in general.

 

One thing to keep in mind is we only actually see part of this whole universe to begin with. When we look out across space we look back in time. But how fast that time span was is also somewhat determined by the overall size of the universe itself which we simply have no way to fully measure. Its also determined by the actual age of the stars, by certain sign posts or markers we go by to measure distance, etc. All of these can be considered a variable which we tend to average out to certain values. The oldest stars we see, by our best theories should be about 15 billion years old. That figure itself could be subject to some variance if there is missing information we do not have at present about their own evolution. Also, and there are articles that have proposed this, if any of the common so-called constants where a bit different in the past then our age measurments themselves could be off enough to allow for the universe being a bit older or younger. I'm not saying here they were. But all of that is possible under modern theory.

 

Another issue here often overlooked is was the entropy or information of the universe at the start of creation zero? Another words, was there a lot of sturcture built in when the universe first was born. If there was then the universe would have evolved a lot faster than we suspect at present. No one was actually there at the start of time. That's one big gap in our information that untill we better understand the processes involved at such an early stage its simply a mystery we need to solve, not a damnation of every theory we have.

 

One other thing. Modern String based theories have been saying things might have evolved a lot faster than we general think using the Standard Model depending upon early conditions.

[paultrr]

Or, such organized structures really do take eons to develop as previously thought and there wasn't a Big Bang after all.

 

The problem there is eternal expansion also tends to imply a return to the constant creation idea. Most of that idea has been rather strongly ruled out over time. So the only choices we have is either we have some gaps in our standard model,(already know to be true) or one is left with acceptance of special creation. Now, I know most of the Christian Right would love for someone to prove special creation. But, even if you accepted such this type of evidence also does not support the standard christian view of a 4000 year old earth or even the type of Creator who tends to get that involved in day to day activity. Its more like a Creator who performed an experiment and simply let that experiment run on its own.

[C1ay]

So the only choices we have is either we have some gaps in our standard model,(already know to be true) or one is left with acceptance of special creation.

 

There could be other choices. Imagine for example that there is an infinite universe. Suppose at some point a singularity in this infinite universe led to an event like the big bang which created a subset of matter, within the infinite universe, that is expanding. This subset of matter is not all of the matter though, only that which was expelled by the local big bang. Supposed other pre-existing strutures of matter like this newly discovered cluster were in the vicinity but not part of the mass expelled by the local big bang. These structures could have existed long before the event we call the big bang and they would predate our universe. This would not be the first such conflict to occur in our analysis. Other globular clusters seem to be older than the universe we think was created by the big bang and they may well be. Here's some food for thought.

[paultrr]

There could be other choices. Imagine for example that there is an infinite universe. Suppose at some point a singularity in this infinite universe led to an event like the big bang which created a subset of matter, within the infinite universe, that is expanding. This subset of matter is not all of the matter though, only that which was expelled by the local big bang. Supposed other pre-existing strutures of matter like this newly discovered cluster were in the vicinity but not part of the mass expelled by the local big bang. These structures could have existed long before the event we call the big bang and they would predate our universe. This would not be the first such conflict to occur in our analysis. Other globular clusters seem to be older than the universe we think was created by the big bang and they may well be. Here's some food for thought.

 

Even though it would be hard to explain such, and this gives one about the same, its possible our universe is older and simply has gone through stages of expansion, slow down, and expansion. Another issue I came across using Gott's idea about the BB coming from a short loop in time before our present Universe started is that one can also model that way and have the Universe actually as a closed loop with the time duration getting longer under each loop. That being the case preexisting structure becomes very possible. Also, in that case there could be far older matter out there than current models allow.

[haselhurst]

Or, such organized structures really do take eons to develop as previously thought and there wasn't a Big Bang after all.

"Yeah, that was my thought too. Strange that they did not comment on that at all."

 

And my thought too.

 

Some stuff from my Cosmology page;

 

One thing that is very interesting (and disturbing) is how knowledge gets corrupted over time. This particularly applies to the idea that 'Hubble discovered that the universe was expanding'. He did no such thing, Hubble discovered a relationship between redshift and distance - one possible cause of this is the Doppler shift due to matter moving away from other matter (an expanding universe). Now this is a profoundly different thing to say, and yet it is simply amazing as to the number of respected scientists who say that Hubble discovered that the universe was expanding (which is not science!) As Eric Lerner correctly notices;

 

In one of its several variations the big bang cosmological theory is almost universally accepted as the most reasonable theory for the origin and evolution of the universe. In fact, it is so well accepted that virtually every media article, story or program that touches on the subjects of astronomy or cosmology presents the big bang (BB) as a virtual proven fact. As a result, the great majority of the literate populace of the world, including most of the scientists of the world, accepts big bang theory (BBT) as scientific fact. (Lerner, 1991)

 

It should be pointed out that Hubble himself was not convinced that red shift was exclusively due to Doppler effect. Up to the time of his death he maintained that velocities inferred from red shift measurements should be referred to as apparent velocities.' (Mitchell, 1997)

 

Below we quote a few scientists who have made this error, simply because we wish to strongly make the point about how we begin to assume things to be true, above and beyond what the observation tells us;

 

About 1929 the American astronomer Hubble demonstrated the existence of a strange correlation between distance and speed of the nebulae: they all move outwards, away from us, and with a velocity which increases proportional to the distance; or, in other words, the system of the spiral nebulae is expanding - just as the primitive comparison of this system with a gas had suggested to earlier thinkers. Now if one regards the expansion to have been the same in the past as it is today, one is led to the idea that the whole system must have had a beginning when all matter was condensed in a small 'supernucleus,' and one can calculate the time interval since this 'beginning of the world' and the present instant. The result obtained from Hubble's data was 2000 to 3000 millions of years.

Meanwhile the relativistic cosmology initiated by Einstein and De Sitter began to ripen in the hands of Friedmann, Lemaitre, Tolman, Robertson and others. A series of new possible models of the world were discovered between the extreme cases found by Einstein and De Sitter, and the question arose which of them fitted the empirical facts best, in particular those facts established by Hubble. Today there are many ramifications and refinements of the theory and there has been so enormous an increase of observational material that it is difficult to judge the actual situation. Earlier ideas which seemed to be most fertile have turned out to be too narrow or even wrong. (Born, 1964)

 

In the years following his proof of the existence of other galaxies, Hubble spent his time cataloguing their distances and observing their spectra. At that time most people expected the galaxies to be moving around quite randomly, and so expected to find as many blue-shifted spectra as red-shifted ones. It was quite a surprise, therefore, to find that most galaxies appeared red-shifted: nearly all were moving away from us! More surprisingly still was the finding that Hubble published in 1929: even the size of a galaxy's red shift is not random, but is directly proportional to the galaxy's distance from us. Or, in other words, the farther a galaxy is, the faster it is moving away! And that meant that the universe could not be static, as everyone previously thought, but is in fact expanding; the distance between the different galaxies is growing all the time.

 

In 1929, Edwin Hubble made the landmark observation that wherever you look, distant galaxies are moving rapidly away from us. In other words, the universe is expanding. This means at earlier times objects would have been closer together. .. Hubble's observations suggested that there was a time, called the big bang, when the universe was infinitesimally small and infinitely dense. (Hawking, 1988)

 

Only after the astronomer Edwin Hubble had studied the motions of galaxies and independently discovered that the universe was expanding. (Wertheim, 1997)

 

I am quite simply amazed that these good scientists can write such loose 'science'. Hopefully this will be an important lesson to Humanity – that we must always distinguish between empirical observations - and theories / interpretations founded on those observations!

 

Geoff Haselhurst

http://www.spaceandmotion.com

[paultrr]

"Yeah, that was my thought too. Strange that they did not comment on that at all."

 

And my thought too.

 

Some stuff from my Cosmology page;

 

 

 

I am quite simply amazed that these good scientists can write such loose 'science'. Hopefully this will be an important lesson to Humanity – that we must always distinguish between empirical observations - and theories / interpretations founded on those observations!

 

Geoff Haselhurst

http://www.spaceandmotion.com

 

 

Everyone tends to speculate based upon at the time known theory. The problem is a lot of this speculation tends to become dogma after a bit. In the early part of that period we knew so little then, as in some ways we do now, that some of that speculation was bound to be disproved latter. I think its safe to say that this universe holds a lot of surprizes for us.

[C1ay]

I think its safe to say that this universe holds a lot of surprizes for us.

 

I think it is safe to say that the universe holds many secrets that we will not have the technology to discover or understand until the future. Look at the discoveries enabled by the Hubble that would not have been possible without it. Look at those we have from Chandra. The future will bring us newer and better instruments and with them will come new discoveries. Until then, they will be beyond our grasp. Good scientists should know and understand this. They should know that all is not as it appears. They should question everything, even the obvious if they wish to truely understand.