Astronomers Found The Farthest Known Galaxies

[Plenoptic 0]

When searching through the sky through the Keck-II telescope on top of Mauna Kea in Hawaii, astronomers found the farthest galaxies known to man. They are so far away, that they are viewing them at the age of 500 million years old. That may seem old, but the universe itself is approximately 13.7 billion years old. That means that the galaxies are 13.2 billion years away. What does that mean in miles? From what I calculated that would mean that they are roughly 82.2 sexillion miles away. The number itself would appear like this...

82200000000000000000000

The article says that the stars they see were made after the era of the first stars, because when the universe first was created, it was in theory just fog like. They found the six galaxies using a concept known as "gravitational lensing."

 

define:gravitational lensing

 

The article can be found here: http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

 

Space has always interested me, that is why I posted this article. I like to think of what the "Big Bang" was like and what it was like for this space to just expand into nothingness or whatever you may view it as. They got to see the universe close to the beginning. Those stars are probably long gone now but they are looking into the past. I wonder how they know they are looking at the beginning and not the end though I'll have to do more research on that.

[mojoman 0]

WOW Thats far! It'll be awhile before we go to another galaxy, as we still have to search through our own still, let alone land a man on Mars

Edited July 11, 2007 by mojoman (see edit history)

[Saint_Michael 3]

That is some good stuff right there; I do believe astronomers across the world are trying to find traces of this star type which is so powerful, that if one were to explode just couple hundred light years we would see it and feel it as the earth were to explode. But to think that someone found stars and galaxies that are almost as old as our universe. If anyone was smart they would try and build a telescope that can double or even triple the power of hte Keck-II telescope, but if memory serves me correct the Keck-II telescope is one of the oldest known working telescopes being used right now (might have to check that one out).

[altenergy 0]

How much fuel it takes to get there in:a) a hummer:D a 40 mpg car?(: