

Hubble Has Spotted An Ancient Galaxy That Shouldn't Exist - joelrunyon
http://io9.com/5927315/hubble-has-spotted-an-ancient-galaxy-that-shouldnt-exist

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nlh
For the astronomy nerds out there (and really, which of us isn't even a tiny
bit of an astronomy nerd?) check out Universe Sandbox:

<http://universesandbox.com/>

You can run simulations similar to what's described in the article and really
get an intuitive understanding of how these galaxies form and change on a
timescale of millions or billions of years.

I know nothing about formal astrophysics but could play with that game for
hours (and have). Also kind of makes you realize that studying what's out
there is somewhat akin to studying the bubbles that form in a bubble bath --
lots and lots (and lots) of randomness, but still so much to learn...

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_delirium
The article itself doesn't imply that it "shouldn't" exist, just that it's
likely due to a combination of factors that would make such galaxies rare. Not
open-access unfortunately, but the abstract is actually a reasonable summary:
[http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v487/n7407/full/nature1...](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v487/n7407/full/nature11256.html)

~~~
gosub
<http://arxiv.org/abs/1207.4196>

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robryan
Wish they would just show the real pictures in the article rather than an
artists depiction, kind of gives an unreasonable expectation of how well we
can see a galaxy 10 billion light years distant.

~~~
JSGraef
Here's one for you: [http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=grand-
desig...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=grand-design-
spiral-bx442&WT.mc_id=SA_CAT_SPC_20120719)

~~~
robryan
Yeah, I saw the ones in the paper, just commenting on the impression others
will get. Given the big picture at the top on only a note at the bottom of the
article that it is an artists impression.

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scotty79
I think that there is growing body of clues indicating that our current
understanding of big bang is flawed.

~~~
scotty79
Maybe I'm wrong and the recent strange observations (such as the one commented
here and the ones linked below) don't stack up and are explained as fast as
they appear?

<http://www.world-science.net/othernews/101125_galaxies.htm>
[http://www.universetoday.com/10974/distant-galaxy-is-too-
mas...](http://www.universetoday.com/10974/distant-galaxy-is-too-massive-for-
current-theories/) [http://lsiblog.blogspot.com/2010/11/some-galaxies-look-
too-o...](http://lsiblog.blogspot.com/2010/11/some-galaxies-look-too-old.html)

Or maybe theory of how galaxies form is not the part of big bang theory?

Or maybe I just got downvoted because I triggered some peoples cracpot-filter
by using "big bang" and "flawed" in the same sentence?

~~~
lucian1900
Crackpot filter. Mine's still on.

Some findings are slightly surprising, but none so far have had big enough
deltas to call the big bang theory "flawed". There's way too much data
confirming it.

~~~
mhurron
You do know that flawed is not a synonym for wrong? You do also have the
reading comprehension to see that 'the big bang theory is wrong' and 'there
are flaws with our current understanding of the big bang theory' are in no way
saying the same thing?

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Uchikoma
What if other civilizations terra engineer galaxies to keep their form, will
this hamper our physical understanding of the universe?

~~~
andrewcooke
interesting question

[although i think from the way you use "keep" you've misunderstood slightly
what's happening here. "old" in this article means that it is a long way away
and so is observed as it was a long time ago (light takes time to travel from
the galaxy to our telescope) and so the galaxy _we are seeing_ is actually [as
it was when it was] _new_. in general, it is expected that galaxies start off
as amorphous blobs and (some) become spiral-like as they get older
(simplifying hugely). the problem here is that this galaxy [as we see it] is
so _new_ (which the article calls "old"!) that it hasn't had time to become
such a nice-looking spiral. so it's not "keeping form" as much as "achieving
form too early".]

anyway, back to the question. you can divide astronomy into two halves.
there's the serendipitous "interesting object" work, like this paper, and then
there's the "survey" work. the two are complementary - detailed studies turn
up new ideas but can be very misleading (due to chance - this is a good
example, where it seems that something looks "mature" simply because it has
been disrupted in a way that, accidentally, makes it look like something it is
not). in contrast, surveys give us reliable knowledge of how things work "on
average", so are more reliable, but take more time and are very "broad brush"
(and usually rely on the earlier detailed work for a "focus").

my guess is that a terra-forming (well, galaxy forming) civilization could
mislead the former, but not the latter. this is because the universe is very
big :o) - the aliens would need time travel and / or faster than light travel
(arguably the same thing and generally considered unlikely) in order to affect
large volumes of the observable universe. particularly if they took a
reasonable time to evolve (you could argue that galaxies need to form and
"settle down" before things are stable enough for live to evolve to such a
level).

~~~
andrewcooke
actually, the final argument isn't so much about galaxies forming. for a
civilisation to have formed early enough to affect all of the observable
universe without time/ftl travel i think that they would have to exist before
_atoms_ existed (ie when the universe was still a primordial "plasma", during
"inflation", assuming, of course, current models, although this general
constraint is fairly strong, given the microwave background uniformity,
although(!) see below).

now you can argue that the idea that atoms are necessary for life is an
anthropomorphic bias :o) but really the problem is that very little of
_anything_ had _structure_ at that point. and for life i think you do need
some kind of order.

this is related to why the microwave background result(s?) with large-scale
anisotropies was(were?) so _weird_ (and, if i understand right, have since
been discounted) -
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_microwave_background_rad...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_microwave_background_radiation#Low_multipoles_and_other_anomalies)

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hcarvalhoalves
The _real news_ , though, is how they get clear images from objects so
distant. It always amazes me.

If I understood, the galaxy is 10 billion light years away? _Is that correct?_

