New Ultra Deep Field from the Hubble Space Telescope

[seanliddelow]

Hubble has now attained an even deeper view of the universe.
The new images come from the newly-installed WFPC 3 and are in Near-Infrared. The image shows that galaxies that formed 600 million after the big-bang.

http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2009/31/

[multiweb]

Pretty amazing picture. It's interesting to see the diversity of shapes and colors. They all look different and have their unique features an colors. Very cool field. :thumbsup:

[seanliddelow]

A lot of mergers as well:thumbsup:
I cant wait to see all the redshifts attained from this picture.

[Jarvamundo]

Yeah, I'm seeing alot of structure here... those mergers!

Having some redshifts to figure out which ones are near +600M after BB...

I wonder if we'll see even more larger scale structures at these distances... big bangs looking like a shakey wobble...

Plenty more BIG telescopes turning on soon, to look further... exciting times!

[Robh]

Fantastic image, only 2.4 arcminutes across!
It should be noted, and it does say so in the documentation, that only the faintest reddest objects are at this distance (0.6 billion years after the big bang). For example, the spiral galaxies seen are much closer. They would take much longer to form.

Regards, Rob.

[renormalised]

Quite an impressive shot, that. If you look really close up by zooming in, there's more in that picture than initially meets the eye. If you look carefully at the noise in the piccie, there are areas which appear to have a lot more structure and definite shape than the overall noise. I'd say they're probably even fainter objects at very great distance beyond those red ones.

Quite a few BCD's in the piccie (Blue Compact Dwarf galaxies).

[Jarvamundo]

Yeah! The print version 5.5M is well worth a close up study... http://imgsrc.hubblesite.org/hu/db/images/hs-2009-31-a-full_jpg.jpg

Mind is boggled... imagine a sky survey at these distances with inferred redshift distances... how interesting that would be.

Thanks to the yanks and their inspirational hubble machine!

[Robh]

We're now at 600 million years post Big Bang. If the first stars were formed about 400 million years after the BB aren't we nearing the point in time where the view becomes essentially formless i.e. tells us no more? Where does research leave us then?

Regards, Rob.

[mswhin63]

Hi Rob, I was thinking the same 600,000,000 years ago I can't image so many galaxies forming that quickly. There still could be a bit more undiscovered science involved but those galaxy looked a lot older in as far as formation.

Although they look quite compacted at such a far distance. There is speculation of an expanding and contracting universe, maybe this is a result of this, highly compressed already formed galaxies, also possiblity that universe compression is not full maybe a few million light years before expanding again.

2 Bob's worth

[renormalised]

I wouldn't be too worried just yet. They're changing the goalposts all the time in so far as the numbers go, and in any case, they only have a fairly marginal understanding of how Pop III stars and galaxies form. The Universe is full of surprises, and we barely know enough to comprehend what we're seeing, despite all that we have learnt.

It'll be a case of "watch this space" for quite some time, yet:D