Post by glactus on Apr 6, 2008 2:20:31 GMT
If you thought the Hubble Deep Field galaxy photo was the most incredible thing you've ever seen, wait until you lay eyes on the most sensitive infrared map of the distant Universe ever taken.
Over the last three years, UK astronomers have compiled data from the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope (UKIRT) in Hawaii and their results are nothing less than astounding.
Today, Dr. Sebastien Foucaud from the University of Nottingham presented his first results to the April 4 National Astronomy Meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society. These results only form part of the Ultra-Deep Survey (UDS) - an image containing over 100,000 galaxies over an area four times the size of the full Moon - and a look into the formation of the most distant galaxies yet witnessed. Primordial structures that existed over 12.5 billion years ago.
The UKIDSS Ultra-Deep Survey will, in time, give us a complete census of galaxy formation in the infrared. So far over one hundred thousand galaxies have been detected and the final image will be 100 times larger than any equivalent survey to date.
Does the Ultra-Deep Sky Survey images shed light on the great cosmological mystery? Only time - and distance - will tell. Professor Andy Lawrence, Principle Investigator of UKIDSS from the University of Edinburgh, said "As we keep taking images over the next few years, we will see ever more distant galaxies."
NGC 1566
credits:
This is part text only. See image, full text and all scientists involved at universetoday.com
www.universetoday.com/2008/04/04/uk-time-machine-reveals-the-formation-of-distant-galaxies/#more-13491
article credit: Tammy Plotner
