NASA Telescopes Help Find Rare Galaxy at Dawn of Time
This image shows one of
the most distant galaxies known, called GN-108036, dating back to 750
million years after the Big Bang that created our universe. The galaxy's
light took 12.9 billion years to reach us. Image credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech/STScI/University of Tokyo› Full image and caption
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December 21, 2011
Astronomers using NASA's Spitzer and Hubble space telescopes have
discovered that one of the most distant galaxies known is churning out
stars at a shockingly high rate. The blob-shaped galaxy, called
GN-108036, is the brightest galaxy found to date at such great
distances.The galaxy, which was discovered and confirmed using ground-based telescopes, is 12.9 billion light-years away. Data from Spitzer and Hubble were used to measure the galaxy's high star production rate, equivalent to about 100 suns per year. For reference, our Milky Way galaxy is about five times larger and 100 times more massive than GN-108036, but makes roughly 30 times fewer stars per year.
MORE: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-392&cid=release_2010-392&msource=11392&tr=y&auid=10061865
gaw
Glenn A. Walsh, Project Director,
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