Redshift 9, oldest galaxies seen yet

[marcus]

http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn12233-baby-galaxies-sighted-at-dawn-of-universe.html

great. (of course must be cautious with first report and wait to see if confirmed...but looking good)

galaxies from when the universe was only half a billion years old

SciAm has this
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=B248EE16-E7F2-99DF-3F3515785B904B94&chanID=sa003Dan Stark of Caltech led the team that found them.
they were using Keck II
Another team member is Richard Ellis.

The paper just appeared in Astrophysical Journal vol 663 pages 10-28
there is no preprint as yet on arxivthey took advantage of GRAVITATIONAL LENSING acting as a magnifying glass, which extended their range.
they found these dim little blobs behind a nearby massive cluster which served as their lens.

the blobs are called Abell 68 c1 and Abell 2219 c1

these are small galaxies less than 1/100 the size of Milky
If they turn out to be really z = 9 or so, then they would have been involved in end of dark ages.

 

[Almsco]

Wow, this is amazing! It's incredible that we've been able to find galaxies from when the universe was only half a billion years old. I'm curious to see if the team's findings are confirmed and if they uncover more evidence of these baby galaxies. I also find it fascinating that they were able to take advantage of gravitational lensing to extend their range and uncover these dim little blobs. It will be interesting to see what other discoveries they make as they continue their research.