Farthest Galaxy

[Bazile]

- Which is the farthest known galaxy ?
- How far away is it ?
- How many stars is it estimated to contain?
- How old is it estimated to be ?
- What is the estimated width and length ?
- who discovered it ?

[jake-the-peg]

Could be this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abell_1835_IR1916

But when you're dealing with things over 10 billion light years away it's hard to be sure of very much at all. In fact it's a minor miracle that it was ever detected and due to it's position in line with another galaxy

[Bazile]

Thanks Jake

10 Billion light years away - truly incomprehensible distances when you are talking about space - isn't it ?

And persumably it is moving further away from the earth - givng that the universe is expanding ?

I'm just fascinated by the whole universe ' thing '

[dawkins]

or it could be this one:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4274187/

[mibn2cweus]

. . . or maybe this one IOK-1

[Bazile]

If we take the first galaxy above for example am I correct in saying that the earth was formed at a distance , 10 bilion light years from the location of this galaxy , which is why the light takes that time to reach us - Is it as simple as that ?

Also do we know of any stars which could be seen in the past , but which has now dissapeared ( died ) , and we know this because the last of the light from the star has reached the earth ?

[mibn2cweus]

When the light first left the galaxy in question, the Earth was much closer to where that galaxy was than it is now as the light is arriving from where it was 10 billion years ago and the universe was much younger and smaller then. Meanwhile that galaxy has moved much further away over the 10 billion years it has taken the light from it to reach our current position as the universe continues to grow at an accelerated rate of expansion. If we were now to send a beam of light in the apparent direction of the galaxy it will probably never reach it since the rate of the expansion of the universe now exceeds the velocity at which light travels toward it and even if it finally did reach that far the galaxy has probably moved so that it is no longer in the same direction it is now observed.

Although the age of our current universe is estimated to be less than 14 billion years old the current size of the universe is many times the distance light traveled during this time and continues to expand at an accelerating rate. Some estimates of the current size of the universe range from 156 billion light years to much much more. This means that all but a small fraction of the universe is now beyond our field of view.

You can find many discussions of this on the internet, here�s one of them but don't hesitate to return to answerbank with more questions <"?

[Bazile]

Thanks mibn2cweus - very helpful / informative

Sorry to persits on this topic - but have you any advices as to the second question , in my post of 25/11/06 ?

[mibn2cweus]

Accept for stars that go super nova the process of star death generally takes millions of years (gradual).

I'm in the process of obtaining a new computer, C U L8r