Baby Photos

[Chuft-Captain]

Hubble has snapped a picture of some very young galaxies when the Universe was only 600 million years old (about 4% of it's current age).

http://www.nydailynews.com/lifestyle/2010/01/06/2010-01-06_universes_baby_pic_nasas_hubble_telescope_captures_image_of_600millionyearold_ga.html

[t00fri]

Hubble has snapped a picture of some very young galaxies when the Universe was only 600 million years old (about 4% of it's current age).

http://www.nydailynews.com/lifestyle/2010/01/06/2010-01-06_universes_baby_pic_nasas_hubble_telescope_captures_image_of_600millionyearold_ga.html

While this is a nice shot, the facts in the figure caption are not quite right:

This photo taken by the Hubble Space Telescope shows a snapshot of the universe 600 million years after the Big Bang, the earliest image yet.

We do have of course VERY detailed imaging of the Universe when it was just 380 000 years old! This is the WMAP microwave imaging of the sky
http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/resources/imagetopics.html

On this well-known WMAP timeline picture of the Universe, You can see the cosmic microwave sky


The cosmic microwave background (CMB) is kind of an "afterglow" of the 'inflation' phase after the BigBang. The CMB signal traversed the Universe largely unimpeded until today, where it was detected by the WMAP spacecraft. The results were of basic significance for cosmology ...

At this early times, galaxies, quasars etc did not yet exist!

Fridger

[Chuft-Captain]

While this is a nice shot, the facts in the figure caption are not quite right:

This photo taken by the Hubble Space Telescope shows a snapshot of the universe 600 million years after the Big Bang, the earliest image yet.

I assume what they mean is "earliest visible wavelength image yet".

[t00fri]

While this is a nice shot, the facts in the figure caption are not quite right:

This photo taken by the Hubble Space Telescope shows a snapshot of the universe 600 million years after the Big Bang, the earliest image yet.

I assume what they mean is "earliest visible wavelength image yet".

So why don't they write what they mean? It's all about PR and funding after all...

Fridger

[ajtribick]

Presumably similar reasons to how various radial velocity planets are announced as "smallest known exoplanet" while (a) ignoring mass-inclination degeneracy and (b) ignoring the existence of a 1.6 lunar masses pulsar planet that has been known since 1994...

[t00fri]

Presumably similar reasons to how various radial velocity planets are announced as "smallest known exoplanet" while (a) ignoring mass-inclination degeneracy and (b) ignoring the existence of a 1.6 lunar masses pulsar planet that has been known since 1994...

Yes and it always goes back to making the best impression with their funding agencies who apparently don't care to check such exaggerated/unprecise statements.

Fridger