A new star every two hours... - July 11, 2008
It may look like disco lights after you’ve been partying too hard, but this collection of colours is actually a ‘star-making machine’ 12.3 billion light-years away. The Milky Way produces just 10 stars a year, this one puts out 4,000 (NASA press release).
“This galaxy is undergoing a major baby boom, producing most of its stars all at once,” says Peter Capak of NASA.
Although this level of star making had been seen in galaxies from when the universe was 1.9 billion years old, it has not before been seen in a galaxy of this youthfulness (it hails from a time the universe was 1.3 billion years old), says Capak.
“Before now, we had only seen galaxies form stars like this in the teenaged universe, but this galaxy is forming when the universe was only a child,” said Capak. “The question now is whether the majority of the very most massive galaxies form very early in the universe like the Baby Boom galaxy, or whether this is an exceptional case.”
NASA telescopes spot star "factory" - Reuters
An early record-breaker – Science News
Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Subaru
Comments
"The question now is whether the majority of the very most massive galaxies form very early in the universe like the Baby Boom galaxy, or whether this is an exceptional case."
The answer here is simple: This is NOT an exceptional case; in fact, it remains the rule in all massive galaxies, which are themselves being born by the fragmentation of quasars. For the final and viable model, kindly see the short summary in (1). The illustrative site (2) should then help the picture.
A crank model? Perhaps; but please first read the short letters in (3) to DOE and the IOP before drawing your conclusion. Thank you and Cheers!
(1) www.sittampalam.net/StarFormation.htm
(2) www.sittampalam.net/TheGalaxy.htm
(3) www.sittampalam.net/DOE.pdf
Posted by: Eugene Sittampalam | July 16, 2008 08:57 AM