WickedsDesire
Posts: 9362
Joined: 11/4/2015 Status: offline
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http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/hubble-reveals-observable-universe-contains-10-times-more-galaxies-than-previously-thought The universe suddenly looks a lot more crowded, thanks to a deep-sky census assembled from surveys taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and other observatories. Astronomers came to the surprising conclusion that there are at least 10 times more galaxies in the observable universe than previously thought. The results have clear implications for galaxy formation, and also helps shed light on an ancient astronomical paradox - why is the sky dark at night? A paradox named after someone let me think Cobblers (hehe) paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olbers%27_paradox In analyzing the data, a team led by Christopher Conselice of the University of Nottingham, U.K., found that 10 times as many galaxies were packed into a given volume of space in the early universe than found today. Most of these galaxies were relatively small and faint, with masses similar to those of the satellite galaxies surrounding the Milky Way. As they merged to form larger galaxies the population density of galaxies in space dwindled. This means that galaxies are not evenly distributed throughout the universe's history, the research team reports in a paper to be published in The Astrophysical Journal. "These results are powerful evidence that a significant galaxy evolution has taken place throughout the universe's history, which dramatically reduced the number of galaxies through mergers between them - thus reducing their total number. This gives us a verification of the so-called top-down formation of structure in the universe," explained Conselice. One of the most fundamental questions in astronomy is that of just how many galaxies the universe contains. The landmark Hubble Deep Field, taken in the mid-1990s, gave the first real insight into the universe's galaxy population. Subsequent sensitive observations such as Hubble's Ultra Deep Field revealed a myriad of faint galaxies. This led to an estimate that the observable universe contained about 200 billion galaxies. The new research shows that this estimate is at least 10 times too low. I thought they already gave out the Nobel cash for the discovery of dark matter - ( and yes they overlooked, I can never spell this guys name Fritz wickie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Zwicky he never got one you know :( - and later, Vera Rubin, a feeble women whose place is behind the cooker Now, let me throw this one out there, if they look even harder, perhaps they will find even more https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Webb_Space_Telescope I always called dark matter and dark energy Darkpantaloons where my Nobel - how much cash is it again?
< Message edited by WickedsDesire -- 10/15/2016 10:19:22 AM >
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