New Deep Field image of Cosmos released by ESO

[cosmicalstorm]

These pictures are so fucked up, there must be thousands of galaxies in that little picture alone.

http://www.eso.org/public/outreach/pres ... normal.jpg

Story:
http://www.eso.org/public/outreach/pres ... 39-08.html

High res pictures:
http://www.eso.org/public/outreach/pres ... 39-08.html

ESO 39/08 - Photo Release

07 November 2008
For immediate release
A Pool of Distant Galaxies – the deepest ultraviolet image of the Universe yet

Anyone who has wondered what it might be like to dive into a pool of millions of distant galaxies of different shapes and colours, will enjoy the latest image released by ESO. Obtained in part with the Very Large Telescope, the image is the deepest ground-based U-band image of the Universe ever obtained. It contains more than 27 million pixels and is the result of 55 hours of observations with the VIMOS instrument.

This uniquely beautiful patchwork image, with its myriad of brightly coloured galaxies, shows the Chandra Deep Field South (CDF-S), arguably the most observed and best studied region in the entire sky. The CDF-S is one of the two regions selected as part of the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey (GOODS), an effort of the worldwide astronomical community that unites the deepest observations from ground- and space-based facilities at all wavelengths from X-ray to radio. Its primary purpose is to provide astronomers with the most sensitive census of the distant Universe to assist in their study of the formation and evolution of galaxies.

The new image released by ESO combines data obtained with the VIMOS instrument in the U- and R-bands, as well as data obtained in the B-band with the Wide-Field Imager (WFI) attached to the 2.2 m MPG/ESO telescope at La Silla, in the framework of the GABODS survey.

The newly released U-band image – the result of 40 hours of staring at the same region of the sky and just made ready by the GOODS team – is the deepest image ever taken from the ground in this wavelength domain. At these depths, the sky is almost completely covered by galaxies, each one, like our own galaxy, the Milky Way, home of hundreds of billions of stars.

Galaxies were detected that are a billion times fainter than the unaided eye can see and over a range of colours not directly observable by the eye. This deep image has been essential to the discovery of a large number of new galaxies that are so far away that they are seen as they were when the Universe was only 2 billion years old.

In this sea of galaxies – or island universes as they are sometimes called – only a very few stars belonging to the Milky Way are seen. One of them is so close that it moves very fast on the sky. This "high proper motion star" is visible to the left of the second brightest star in the image. It appears as a funny elongated rainbow because the star moved while the data were being taken in the different filters over several years.

Notes

Because the Universe looks the same in all directions, the number, types and distribution of galaxies is the same everywhere. Consequently, very deep observations of the Universe can be performed in any direction. A series of fields were selected where no foreground object could affect the deep space observations (such as a bright star in our galaxy, or the dust from our Solar System). These fields have been observed using a number of telescopes and satellites, so as to collect information at all possible wavelengths, and characterise the full spectrum of the objects in the field. The data acquired from these deep fields are normally made public to the whole community of astronomers, constituting the basis for large collaborations.

Observations in the U-band, that is, at the boundary between visible light and ultraviolet are challenging: the Earth's atmosphere becomes more and more opaque out towards the ultraviolet, a useful property that protects people's skin, but limiting to ground-based telescopes. At shorter wavelengths, observations can only be done from space, using, for example, the Hubble Space Telescope. On the ground, only the very best sites, such as ESO's Paranal Observatory in the Atacama Desert, can perform useful observations in the U-band. Even with the best atmospheric conditions, instruments are at their limit at these wavelengths: the glass of normal lenses transmits less UV light, and detectors are less sensitive, so only instruments designed for UV observations, such as VIMOS on ESO's Very Large Telescope, can get enough light.

The VIMOS U-band image, which was obtained as part of the ESO/GOODS public programme, is based on 40 hours of observations with the VLT. The VIMOS R-band image was obtained co-adding a large number of archival images totaling 15 hours of exposure. The WFI B-band image is part of the GABODS survey.

[cosmicalstorm]

Well that site is slow right now so I uploaded a normal size pic to imageavenue.

[NoXion]

You know, I used to think there were more stars in the universe than grains of sand in the desert.

Images like that lead me to suspect that I am wrong - there are more galaxies in the universe than grains of sand in the desert.

Now consider also that cosmologists suspect that the visible universe is but a tiny part of the greater whole, that is truly mindboggling.

Which is why I get intensely annoyed when science fiction throws around phrases like "the most powerful being/civilisation in the universe" when such things are really not that notable even on a galactic scale.

[Darth Raptor]

Which is why I get intensely annoyed when science fiction throws around phrases like "the most powerful being/civilisation in the universe" when such things are really not that notable even on a galactic scale.

This is pretty much just like the Romans believing their Empire was the be all and end all. The later Byzantine Emperors even called themselves the Lords of Time and Space. Sci-fi is replete with "Galactic Empires" localized to a region of the Orion Arm. As big as the universe is, it can't contain the human ego.

[Hawkwings]

Where was that 400+ MB deep field picture that was posted here a few months ago? I can't find it anymore...

[NoXion]

This is pretty much just like the Romans believing their Empire was the be all and end all. The later Byzantine Emperors even called themselves the Lords of Time and Space. Sci-fi is replete with "Galactic Empires" localized to a region of the Orion Arm. As big as the universe is, it can't contain the human ego.

The Byzantine Emperors and their Roman predecessors at least had the (somewhat dubious I realise) excuse of ignorance. Any regime calling itself "Rulers of the Universe" or something like that today would be the subject of ridicule; regimes further into the future even more so. It seems to me be a case of one's mouth writing cheques one's ass can't cash.

It would be amusing to read a sci-fi story about a hubristic "Galactic" Empire getting it's comeuppance by sufficiently pissing off a truly universal-scale power, such as an alliance of superclusters or something like that (But if the universe is as big as I've been lead to believe it is, even an alliance of several thousand superclusters probably isn't that notable on the universal scale). A straight-up military conflict would be over before you could say "Galactic Mass-Scattering Device", but doubtless a civilisation controlling over several million billion star systems would be able to come with a... shall we say, interesting way of teaching a lesson.

In any case, my impression is that too many sci-fi writers suffer a complete failure of imagination or knowledge, failing to realise just how fucking huge our universe is, rather than the being or civilisation in question having a cosmologically over-inflated opinion of itself. I've got a big lavishly illustrated hardback astronomy book that even a child could understand, that shows the universe from the Earth-Moon system to the local arrangement of superclusters. OK, so my head still splits when I try to fit the entire heavens into it, but I at least understand that in cosmological terms, a single galaxy is a water molecule in a large gas giant.

[Molyneux]

Well, I think I've found my next dozen or so wallpapers...taking bite-size chunks of that picture should do quite nicely.

[speaker-to-trolls]

The Byzantine Emperors and their Roman predecessors at least had the (somewhat dubious I realise) excuse of ignorance. Any regime calling itself "Rulers of the Universe" or something like that today would be the subject of ridicule; regimes further into the future even more so. It seems to me be a case of one's mouth writing cheques one's ass can't cash.

They knew about the Islamic Caliphates, the kingdoms of India and China, the Central Asian wilderness, the unexplored reaches of Africa, the uncharted Atlantic and Indian oceans, and any time they wanted they could have tilted their heads upward. The only excuse they had was huge arrogance and small imaginations.

Bearing that in mind I imagine that people in the future could find their way around to being that self-important again.

I'm interested by this idea that the universe is bigger than what we can see. I always assumed space itself was created by the big bang, but two of my friends told me once that it was just our 'universe' that was expanding out into space that already existed. Is there any idea which it is. Furthermore, if we are expanding out into space that already exists, which in fact already has stuff in it (as may be indicated by things on the other side of the universe being pulled about by something from the outside), then there could, as someone noted, be other big bangs going on. How do they come about? What happens to old Visible Universes when they get much older than ours? What happens if two universes expand into one another? What happens if objects from an old universe like ours encounter objects from a younger, denser universe?

I've probably just tortured a lot of theoretical astrophysics theories with my stupid questions, I apologise for that.

[Darth Ruinus]

Where does this idea of multiple big bangs come from? Sounds like it adds a bunch of complications into our already existing model, that as far as we know, works just fine with one big bang.

[Dooey Jo]

I'm interested by this idea that the universe is bigger than what we can see. I always assumed space itself was created by the big bang, but two of my friends told me once that it was just our 'universe' that was expanding out into space that already existed. Is there any idea which it is.

Neither, really. Space was never created as there is no point in time when it did not exist, and it is meaningless to talk about times when time itself did not exist. The other idea seems to be based on a misunderstanding of the expanding balloon analogy. Space isn't expanding "into" anything, it's expanding. The space miles are getting bigger (meaning things aren't moving apart; distances are increasing. If you had a really long incorporeal ruler, it would seem to grow longer). I'm not sure how a space-time where only a part of it expands would look.

[Formless]

Where does this idea of multiple big bangs come from? Sounds like it adds a bunch of complications into our already existing model, that as far as we know, works just fine with one big bang.

That begs the question of what came before the big bang. This answers that question by attaching the big crunch model of universe death to the beginning in a cyclical model.

Hopes that makes sense.

[Terralthra]

Where does this idea of multiple big bangs come from? Sounds like it adds a bunch of complications into our already existing model, that as far as we know, works just fine with one big bang.

That begs the question of what came before the big bang. This answers that question by attaching the big crunch model of universe death to the beginning in a cyclical model.

Hopes that makes sense.

Time started with the big bang. Asking what happened before the big bang is a silly question, because there was no "before time started."

[Formless]

That is not a testable hypothesis. On the one hand, you could say that, but on the other, you could say that there is infinite time and it would be just as valid a proposal. Consider also multiverse theories, some of which propose that universes with their own expansion started independently.

This is my understanding of it, at least.

[cosmicalstorm]

I'm a pretty coldblooded person, but whenever I sit down and approach these questions in my mind, what is the origin of existance for instance, it's like running into a mental brickwall. I can feel my heart skip a beat sometimes.

[Admiral Valdemar]

I'm a pretty coldblooded person, but whenever I sit down and approach these questions in my mind, what is the origin of existance for instance, it's like running into a mental brickwall. I can feel my heart skip a beat sometimes.

Likewise. I have often been out walking with a clear night sky and no light pollution around, looking in awe at the stars above. I don't need a telescope, because the vista I can see with the naked eye is enough to humble anyone. Same with the nice, glossy and big book of stellar pictures I got once.

It makes me sad that such things bore others who would care more about who won X-Factor instead.

[Darth Ruinus]

That is not a testable hypothesis.

No, since time is "created" or "bounded" by the Big Bang, so there is nothing "before" it.

On the one hand, you could say that, but on the other, you could say that there is infinite time

Uh, based on my very limited understanding, I think time isn't infinite, since the universe will end, so will time and space. Someone could probably explain it better though.

[NecronLord]

It would be amusing to read a sci-fi story about a hubristic "Galactic" Empire getting it's comeuppance by sufficiently pissing off a truly universal-scale power, such as an alliance of superclusters or something like that (But if the universe is as big as I've been lead to believe it is, even an alliance of several thousand superclusters probably isn't that notable on the universal scale). A straight-up military conflict would be over before you could say "Galactic Mass-Scattering Device", but doubtless a civilisation controlling over several million billion star systems would be able to come with a... shall we say, interesting way of teaching a lesson.

I believe that's the meta-story of the Xeelee books; humanity becomes a psychotic hyper-evil empire on a level that would make the Imperium of Man look cuddly, and tries to exterminate everything in its path. Eventually it gets around to challenging the Xeelee, a truly universal society.

They barely even get noticed by the Xeelee, who lock all human space into some kind of hypercube thing, giving them their own private little universe, (and incidentally saving them from destruction IIRC) as a 'punishment.'

[Junghalli]

Uh, based on my very limited understanding, I think time isn't infinite, since the universe will end, so will time and space. Someone could probably explain it better though.

IIRC, it's possible you could have an inflationary/contractionary universe with an infinite number of Big Bangs and Big Crunches, but the periods before our Big Bang and after our Big Crunch would be essentially irrelevant and might as well not exist as they would be impossible for anything from one universe to survive to see the beginning of another.

[cosmicalstorm]

I love the part of Stephen Baxters book Exultant where he describes how entire massive empires rise and fall during the first nanosecond or so after the Big Bang (He claims that time scales up to energy, i'm not sure if that is accurate) and how one of those empires is responsible for the Inflationary Epoch, as a part of a massive war between them and beings from other parts of the early Universe. As far as they are concerned, by the time the Cosmos is the size of a watermelon, it is age old, cold and dead.

[Kuroneko]

That is not a testable hypothesis. On the one hand, you could say that, but on the other, you could say that there is infinite time and it would be just as valid a proposal.

That's not quite right. The former proposal is predicted by the reigning theory of gravitation, while the latter is not. There is a complication in that it is reasonable to expect GTR to fail under those conditions; however, there also no reason to expect that whatever replaces it will "rescue" time in that matter.

Consider also multiverse theories, some of which propose that universes with their own expansion started independently.

Are you referring to inflation or the no-boundary proposal or something else?

I love the part of Stephen Baxters book Exultant where he describes how entire massive empires rise and fall during the first nanosecond or so after the Big Bang (He claims that time scales up to energy, i'm not sure if that is accurate) ... .

It isn't, at least not in this manner. The time scales in the big bang models are given in cosmological time, which is the time measured by a clock in a reference frame for which the universe is maximally isotropic.

[Formless]

That's not quite right. The former proposal is predicted by the reigning theory of gravitation, while the latter is not. There is a complication in that it is reasonable to expect GTR to fail under those conditions; however, there also no reason to expect that whatever replaces it will "rescue" time in that matter.

Explain? How exactly does gravitation predict that time was created by the big bang and not a boundless dimension like I have been led to believe?

Are you referring to inflation or the no-boundary proposal or something else?

Inflationary. The one that says Big bangs happen all the time at different places/times independently to local inflation.

[Kuroneko]

Explain? How exactly does gravitation predict that time was created by the big bang and not a boundless dimension like I have been led to believe?

In general-relativistic big-bang cosmology, there is no physical meaning to times at or prior the big bang because of a global curvature singularity. Spacetime itself has a boundary there. This singularity cannot be avoided classically--various singularity theorems force it under classical energy conditions. One can also expect the same in a quantum theory of gravity, since if the spacetime curvature is itself a quantum variable subject to fluctuation, there will be no single geometry to pick out what is "before" and what is "after" near the big bang. Of course, lacking a working quantum theory of gravity, this is a guess, but it is nevertheless a very reasonable expectation.