It's the oldest light captured by the Hubble and thus the oldest visible remnants of a much younger universe. What's it like to fly on such a grand scale? Find out! Thanks to Frank Summers and his team and the Astronomy Picture of the Day.
A Flight through the Hubble
Ultra Deep Field
Video Credit: NASA, ESA, F. Summers, Z. Levay, L. Frattare, B. Mobasher, A. Koekemoer and the HUDF Team (STScI)
Video Credit: NASA, ESA, F. Summers, Z. Levay, L. Frattare, B. Mobasher, A. Koekemoer and the HUDF Team (STScI)
Explanation:
What would
it look like to fly through the distant universe? To find out, a team of
astronomers estimated the relative distances to over 5,000 galaxies in one of
the most distant fields of galaxies ever imaged: the Hubble Ultra Deep
Field (HUDF). Because it takes light a long time to
cross the universe, most galaxies visible in the above
video are seen when the universe was only a fraction of its current
age, were still forming, and have unusual shapes when
compared to modern galaxies. No mature looking spiral galaxies such as our Milky
Way or the Andromeda galaxy yet exist. Toward the end of the
video the virtual observer flies past the farthest galaxies
in the HUDF field, recorded to have a redshift
past 8. This early
class of low luminosity galaxies likely contained energetic
stars emitting light that transformed much of the remaining normal
matter in the universe from a cold gas to a hot ionized plasma.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comments welcome. You know the etiquette.