Most Distant Object in Universe Spotted?

Originally posted by Darthorious
It just occured to me that if it did explode and we could isolate and track one tiny piece of light traveling away from it and measure after a time the exact distance it traveled we could calculate it's actual distance from us.

This is being done
whenever such things are detected the GCN emails astronomers to study the afterglow to try and triangulate location.

The explosion is LONG over, what we are seeing is the light from that explosion.

Just as you see lightning, then hear the sound after, because it took longer to get to you.

The lightning is over, but the sound had not yet reached you.

Same thing, except on a much larger scale.

There's no such thing as "Accepted scientific dogma". Science isn't a religion. It is a method of understanding the physical world. And it is always changing as new data comes along. Sorry but I couldn't get passed this sentence as this point needed to be addressed. You can't have a meaningful conversation based on false pretenses.

[edit on 28-4-2009 by projectvxn]

reply to post by Kryties

 

I find that VERY hard to believe
an explosion that lasts that long I cannot fathom

Hi, exploding star fans.

Don't forget that the explosion IS LIGHT YEARS in diameter ! and,
it will be visible "SO-MANY" years.

Soooooo, we begun to se the explosion "NOW" ? right ?

Then we will stop being able to see it "SO-MANY" years later.
That's all.

Blue skies.



[edit on 2009/4/28 by C-JEAN]

While the actual event that created the GRB probably lasted only a few seconds, and was detected for only a few seconds here on Earth, the way astronomers "confirm" the sighting is by pointing their various optical and radio and infrared telescopes to the suspected target and searching for the "afterglow" of the event.

You've gotta remember, these gigantic bursts of gamma radiation are the most powerful and energetic events to transpire since the Big Bang itself. If a GRB happened within a few million light years of Earth, for instance, the intense gamma rays would cook the Earth in just a few seconds, exterminating all Life.

Fortunately for us and for any other Life that might be in our cosmic neighborhood, the numerous GRBs that we can measure today actually happened billions of light years away, billions of years ago, and their energy output has degraded into a much-less-toxic range by the time it reaches us.

However, at the time and location that these GRBs happened, billions of years ago and billions of light years away, they did, in fact, fry everything close to them. Probably cooked countless star systems and irradiated gigantic clouds of gas and dust for millions of light years in every direction.

All of this irradiated material would have taken a while to cool off after the explosion. This is what astronomers search for when trying to confirm a GRB — they search for the afterglow, the heat and radio emissions of matter that has been blasted with hard gamma radiation at relatively close range.

In fact, when we first started detecting GRBs, the whole problem we encountered was pinpointing where they originated, because the explosions don't last long enough for everyone to lock onto them with their various telescopes. A GRB event only lasts a few seconds.

The big breakthrough came when we started detecting the afterglow of such events. When we successfully detected afterglow, we could measure the shift of the detected energies and make a pretty damned good estimate of how far away the things are. And they are consistently far, far away, suggesting that they were fairly common in the earliest stages of the formation of our Universe.


— Doc Velocity







[edit on 4/28/2009 by Doc Velocity]

Originally posted by ModernAcademia
It's interesting that this story makes absolutely no sense to me
am I the only one?

I have a similar problem, but am not sure if it's the same one.

Ok, so this object exploded a long time ago only about 640 million years after the big bang. But it took light 13.1 billion years to get from that explosion to where we are today, yes?

So 640 million years before that the entire mass of the Universe was the size of a Plank's distance. Than Boom. So if nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, 640 million years after the bang this object explodes and starts emitting a signature. Light traveling at a constant speed should therefor take 640 million years + time to compensate for Universe's expansion to reach the once center of the universe and additional 640 million + expansion to reach the Earth assuming we are directly on the opposite side of the Big Bang center.

Now, how far was that object initially from us, when it actually exploded and how fast does it appear to be moving away from us? This is what I don't get, because if the entire universe is expanding than the signature of the explosion that occurred so long ago should have reached us well before 13.1 billion years unless sch far objects are distancing from us almost at the speed of light, or the universe is much older than we think, or am I completely wrong and the universe expanded very rapidly after the initial bang?

Kind regards, M.


Edit: I am completely lost now. Physics forum says "The universe is 13.7 billion years old. It's radius is currently estimated at 78 billion lights years, i.e. a diameter of 156 billion light years"... So the universe is expanding faster than the speed of light? Argh.

[edit on 28-4-2009 by Manawydan]

Have you ever been to a baseball game and sat in the cheep seats ? If you have then you have most certainly seen a batter hit the ball then herd the sound of the bat hitting the ball after the ball has left the bat . This delay from seeing to hearing is do to the fact that light moves faster then sound . So in fact you see the event before you hear it . Well if the distance is great enough you will also experience this time delay with light as well .

When you look at the sun in our sky you are in fact looking at the sun roughly 8 min. ago you are not looking at a " live" sun but in fact looking at the sun as it was 8 or so min ago. It takes just over 8 min for the light from our sun to reach us here on earth .

As for nothing moving faster then light , thats correct , nothing can and does move faster then light . It is not our galaxies that are moving away from one another its the space in between everything , nothing , that is expanding and yes this nothing does expand faster then light .

[edit on 28-4-2009 by Max_TO]

Originally posted by Max_TO
As for nothing moving faster then light , thats correct , nothing can and does move faster then light . It is not our galaxies that are moving away from one another its the space in between everything , nothing , that is expanding and yes this nothing does expand faster then light.

So if I understand correctly, it is not that two distant galaxies are traveling away from one another, it's that the space between them is being inflated / expanded

And that can happen faster than the speed of light, but should you decide to travel from one to the other you could never reach that same speed

I'm sorry if I'm being ignorant, I really am trying to understand this.

Kind regards, M.

reply to post by Manawydan


Get yourself a balloon then inflate in part of the way then use a marker to put dots on the half inflated balloon once done inflate it the rest of the way . Think of the dots as the galaxies and the surface of the balloon as the nothingness of space .

We will never travel anywhere of great distance by means of traditional propulsion sad but true . What " we " need to do is create a means of travel that " folds " the space between us and the object that we wish to travel to there by making the distance far less then it really is .

Take a cloth place it on the table take your trusty marker again and put two dots on opposite ends of your cloth , notice the distance between the two dots ? Well now fold the cloth so that the two dots are almost touching , thats what we need to do with " space " in order to travel great distances , we need to manipulate space in order to " fold " it so that we can get to these distant places of wonder .

[edit on 28-4-2009 by Max_TO]

[edit on 28-4-2009 by Max_TO]

reply to post by Max_TO


Thank you for your explanations. I am familiar with all these analogies from reading "The fabric of space". What I don't remember is ever reading that space between two objects can expand at such an amazing rate. That's whats puzzling me. I understand the principal, but not the rate if you will.

Kind regards, M.

reply to post by Manawydan



Here is a link that I found after doing a quick search scienceline.org...

It may help .

Originally posted by ManawydanI am completely lost now. Physics forum says "The universe is 13.7 billion years old. It's radius is currently estimated at 78 billion lights years, i.e. a diameter of 156 billion light years"... So the universe is expanding faster than the speed of light? Argh.

[edit on 28-4-2009 by Manawydan]

Yep, it's true. There are some truly mind-bending physical processes at work here. In effect, yes, space is expanding faster than the speed of light. Contrary to the popular conception of General Relativity, this is not impossible. GR forbids the acceleration of mass to the speed of light. On a graph of said acceleration, the energy and therefore the mass of the moving object increases exponentially as the function approaches its limit at C. However this only applies to acceleration of mass. A hypothetical massive object somehow created already moving at a fixed velocity near C would not be forbidden, but the amount of energy that would need to be added to the system in order for it to accelerate to a greater speed would be (pardon the pun) astronomical.

But space itself is not massive. It is stretching and expanding, and it's doing so at an accelerating rate. This is probably the most maddening and mind-blowing idea in modern physics. In hundreds of billions of years, the acceleration of the expansion of space will have reached the point of far outpacing the light emitted by stars. Intelligent beings in that far-flung era will have no way of observing the pre-inflationary universe.

As for the universe's age, this is puzzling. The universe's age can be taken to mean "the time interval between the Big Bang and today". When we look out as far as we can look with telescopes, we see back in time because the light we're seeing took time to get here. The region of space we're seeing when we look at light that is 13 billion years old is actually about 78 billion light years away, and the light is redshifted (its wavelength elongated) by passing through expanding space. This is the important fact to remember if you are confused about this: Do not take that figure of 78 billion light years to represent the physical size of the universe. The word radius as used here does not represent a set distance, it merely means the distance from Earth (since it is our only reference point) to the echo of the Big Bang, the event horizon of the universe. The Big Bang did not have a center. It did not happen at a point in space. It happened everywhere at once, creating space and time in the process. The physical extension of space is infinite and unbounded in all directions. But we can only see about 78 billion light years in any direction, because that is the amount of space from which light has had time to reach earth. That is the universe's light cone from Earth's perspective.

This has been a bit long-winded, I know. I hope it has been helpful.

Originally posted by Manawydan
Ok, so this object exploded a long time ago only about 640 million years after the big bang. But it took light 13.1 billion years to get from that explosion to where we are today, yes?

Using the numbers provided in this story, the Universe was already over a billion light years in diameter when this GRB occurred, right? I mean, 640 million years after the Big Bang, presuming that the Universe was expanding like a balloon at near-light-speed, then the Universe was already about 1,280,000,000 light years in diameter. Let's say (for the sake of discussion) that the GRB occurred on one side of the balloon, and the area of the Universe where our solar system would eventually form (9 billion years later) was on the other side of the balloon.

Space was expanding away from the center of the universe, right. Our area of the Universe was retreating from the center at near-light-speed, just as the GRB coordinates were retreating from the center, in the opposite direction, at near-light-speed. Relatively speaking, our combined rate of recession would be greater than light speed, so the GRB's energy would be chasing us for a bit.

About 9 billion years later, when our solar system started forming, the energy from the GRB was still chasing us; but, because the fabric of space itself, through which the energy was traveling, also expanded, the required distance to reach us had increased by a few billion light years. By about 4 billion light years, I think.

By coincidence, 4 billion years is about how long it took our solar system to reach its present state of formation, with a bunch of tiny little hairy animals on the surface of the Earth, peering through their crude instruments into the incomprehensible void, when the residual energy of the GRB finally caught up with us.

Or... The Universe is a lot larger and a lot older than Science claims.

I think this is the problem with the Big Bang theory — we don't have hard numbers with which to buttress our understanding. Think about this: We don't know for sure, but astronomers suspect that the Universe is between 13 and 15 billion years old. That's a huge margin of error.

When astronomers use terms such as "about" this or that distance, all of your warning lights should start flashing — Astronomers are only guessing. Hate to break it to any aspiring astronomers out there, but this area of study is as nebulous as it gets (pun intended). Astronomers are the first to admit that they wake up in a new world every day, and their knowledge base is regularly retooled — which is a nice way of saying they simply don't know what they're talking about most of the time, and they're not in possession of nearly as many facts as the Discovery and Science Channels would have you believe.

— Doc Velocity

reply to post by MillionEyedMask

Thank you very much for that explanation. I'll read more into this as I find the subject intriguing.

Kind regards, M.

reply to post by Doc Velocity

And many thanks to you as well Doc. I really enjoyed your explanations.


Unfortunately, I have to leave in a little while, but will return with more question no doubt.

Kind regards, M.


[edit on 28-4-2009 by Manawydan]

I have to say "Thank you to you all!!"

I've always been confused by the size and scale of the universe, and now I know the astronomers have it as wrong as I.

Would it be possible to centre the big bang do you think??
Or would that be a pipe dream in a dream of pipes?

Is it true that the universe is expanding faster than the big bang, and not contracting/slowing as we are led to believe?

Originally posted by UKWO1Phot
Is it true that the universe is expanding faster than the big bang, and not contracting/slowing as we are led to believe?

Well, the general consensus in the Scientific community at this time is that the expansion of the Universe is speeding up, which doesn't really make sense unless there is an enormous amount of "dark matter" out there, exerting an enormous amount of gravitational attraction on the remaining visible bits of the Universe, literally pulling the Universe apart in all directions.

Kind of like dropping a bowling ball off of a skyscraper, right... The bowling ball is accelerating at about 30 feet per second per second, gaining speed as it falls toward the mass of the Earth.

But, with the expansion of the Universe, it's as if we're surrounded by some tremendous and invisible mass, and our bowling balls are falling outward from a center point, right, accelerating in all directions toward who knows what.

I'm always encouraged when astronomers and mathematicians tell us that 99% of the Universe is "dark matter," that they don't really know what "dark matter" is or where it is, and that everything we can see in the Universe comprises only about 1% of its actual contents.

In other words, with all of our math and science, we're still 99% ignorant of the true nature of reality. Lift your glasses high.



— Doc Velocity







[edit on 4/28/2009 by Doc Velocity]

Originally posted by Doc Velocity
Could this be another case of Science excluding or invalidating data that contradicts accepted Scientific dogma?

Well your spot on with the term dogma.
The Hubble law used for determining cosmological distance has been proven false for decades. Plain and simple, and yet it's still being used as a "proven" method when hundreds of observed cases have shown it to be false.
Even Edwin Hubble himself questioned it's validity before his death in favour of another theory.
The problem is that much of the conventional speculation, and that is what it really is, unravels when this is taken into consideration. Including the timeline for a supposed big bang and the concept of an expanding universe.

See Halton Arps work for a revealing look into the astronomical big bang religion.

One thing I never could grasp about the big bag was this:

Scientists always look back in time toward when the big bang originated. What happens if we turn the telescopes the opposite way and look at what is happening on the other end?

Originally posted by UKWO1Phot
Well, the general consensus in the Scientific community at this time is that the expansion of the Universe is speeding up, which doesn't really make sense unless there is an enormous amount of "dark matter" out there, exerting an enormous amount of gravitational attraction on the remaining visible bits of the Universe, literally pulling the Universe apart in all directions.

I think the current theory is that dark matter accounts for holding galaxies together, but dark energy is what is pulling the universe apart.

Neither of which have been proved to exist other than inside computer simulations.

Dark energy: en.wikipedia.org...
Dark matter: en.wikipedia.org...

Sorry if my summation is a bit sketchy, I don't pretend to be an expert on either.

here is a pick from a thread here to kinda put some perspective to it. for the confused




img19.imageshack.us...