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Rare star-making galaxy foundThis galaxy makes up to 4,000 stars each year.Provided by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Green (visible-light wavelengths) denotes gas in the Baby Boom galaxy, while blue (also visible light) shows galaxies in the foreground that are not

producing nearly as many stars. Yellow/orange (near-infrared light) indicates starlight from the outer portion of Baby Boom. The red blob to the left is

another foreground galaxy that is not producing a lot of stars.NASA/JPL-Caltech/Subaru

Astronomers have uncovered an extreme stellar machine a galaxy in the very remote universe

pumping out stars at a surprising rate of up to 4,000 per year. In comparison, our own MilkyWay galaxy turns out an average of just 10 stars per year.

The discovery, made possible by several telescopes including NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope,

goes against the most common theory of galaxy formation. According to the theory, called theHierarchical Model, galaxies slowly bulk up their stars over time by absorbing tiny pieces of

galaxies and not in one big burst as observed in the newfound Baby Boom galaxy.

"This galaxy is undergoing a major baby boom, producing most of its stars all at once," saysPeter Capak of NASA's Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology,

Pasadena. "If our human population was produced in a similar boom, then almost all of thepeople alive today would be the same age." Capak is lead author of a new report detailing the

discovery in the July 10th issue of theAstrophysical Journal Letters.

The Baby Boom galaxy, which belongs to a class of galaxies called starbursts, is the new recordholder for the brightest starburst galaxy in the very distant universe, with brightness being a

measure of its extreme star-formation rate. It was discovered and characterized using a suite oftelescopes operating at different wavelengths. NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and Japan's

Subaru Telescope, atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii, first spotted the galaxy in visible-light images,where it appeared as an inconspicuous smudge due to is great distance.

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The Baby Boom galaxy, loosely resembles the galaxy shown here, Zw II 96 NASA/ESA/the Hubble Heritage Team [View Larger Image]It wasn't until Spitzer and the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope, also on Mauna Kea in Hawaii,

observed the galaxy at infrared and submillimeter wavelengths, respectively, that the galaxy

stood out as the brightest of the bunch. This is because it has a huge number of youthful stars.When stars are born, they shine with a lot of ultraviolet light and produce a lot of dust. The dustabsorbs the ultraviolet light but, like a car sitting in the Sun, it warms up and re-emits light at

infrared and submillimeter wavelengths, making the galaxy unusually bright to Spitzer and theJames Clerk Maxwell Telescope.

To learn more about this galaxy's unique youthful glow, Capak and his team followed up with a

number of telescopes. They used optical measurements from Keck to determine the exactdistance to the galaxy a whopping 12.3 billion light-years. That's looking back to a time when

the universe was 1.3 billion years old (the universe is approximately 13.7 billion years oldtoday).

"If the universe was a human reaching retirement age, it would have been about 6 years old at the

time we are seeing this galaxy," says Capak.

The astronomers made measurements at radio wavelengths with the National ScienceFoundation's Very Large Array in New Mexico. Together with Spitzer and James Clerk Maxwell

data, these observations allowed the astronomers to calculate a star-forming rate of about 1,000to 4,000 stars per year. At that rate, the galaxy needs only 50 million years, not very long on

cosmic timescales, to grow into a galaxy equivalent to the most massive ones we see today.

While galaxies in our nearby universe can produce stars at similarly high rates, the farthest one

known before now was about 11.7 billion light-years away, or a time when the universe was 1.9billion years old.

"Before now, we had only seen galaxies form stars like this in the teenaged universe, but thisgalaxy is forming when the universe was only a child," says Capak. "The question now is

whether the majority of the very most massive galaxies form very early in the universe like theBaby Boom galaxy, or whether this is an exceptional case. Answering this question will help us

determine to what degree the Hierarchical Model of galaxy formation still holds true."

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"The incredible star-formation activity we have observed suggests that we may be witnessing,

for the first time, the formation of one of the most massive elliptical galaxies in the universe,"says co-author Nick Scoville of Caltech, the principal investigator of the Cosmic Evolution

Survey, also known as Cosmos. The Cosmos program is an extensive survey of a large patch of

distant galaxies across the full spectrum of light.

"The immediate identification of this galaxy with its extraordinary properties would not have

been possible without the full range of observations in this survey," says Scoville

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You are here: Science >> Big Bang Theory

Big Bang Theory - The Premise

The Big Bang theory is an effort to explain what happened at the very beginning of our universe.Discoveries in astronomy and physics have shown beyond a reasonable doubt that our universe did infact have a beginning. Prior to that moment there was nothing; during and after that moment there wassomething: our universe. The big bang theory is an effort to explain what happened during and after thatmoment.

According to the standard theory, our universe sprang into existence as "singularity" around 13.7 billionyears ago. What is a "singularity" and where does it come from? Well, to be honest, we don't know forsure. Singularities are zones which defy our current understanding of physics. They are thought to exist atthe core of "black holes." Black holes are areas of intense gravitational pressure. The pressure is thoughtto be so intense that finite matter is actually squished into infinite density (a mathematical concept whichtruly boggles the mind). These zones of infinite density are called "singularities." Our universe is thoughtto have begun as an infinitesimally small, infinitely hot, infinitely dense, something - a singularity. Where

did it come from? We don't know. Why did it appear? We don't know.

After its initial appearance, it apparently inflated (the "Big Bang"), expanded and cooled, going from very,very small and very, very hot, to the size and temperature of our current universe. It continues to expandand cool to this day and we are inside of it: incredible creatures living on a unique planet, circling abeautiful star clustered together with several hundred billion other stars in a galaxy soaring through thecosmos, all of which is inside of an expanding universe that began as an infinitesimal singularity whichappeared out of nowhere for reasons unknown. This is the Big Bang theory.

Big Bang Theory - Common MisconceptionsThere are many misconceptions surrounding the Big Bang theory. For example, we tend to imagine agiant explosion. Experts however say that there was no explosion; there was (and continues to be) anexpansion. Rather than imagining a balloon popping and releasing its contents, imagine a balloon

expanding: an infinitesimally small balloon expanding to the size of our current universe.

Another misconception is that we tend to image the singularity as a little fireball appearing somewhere inspace. According to the many experts however, space didn't exist prior to the Big Bang. Back in the late'60s and early '70s, when men first walked upon the moon, "three British astrophysicists, StevenHawking, George Ellis, and Roger Penrose turned their attention to the Theory of Relativity and itsimplications regarding our notions of time. In 1968 and 1970, they published papers in which theyextended Einstein's Theory of General Relativity to include measurements of time and space.

1,

2According to their calculations, time and space had a finite beginning that corresponded to the origin of

matter and energy."3The singularity didn't appearin space; rather, space began inside of the singularity.

Prior to the singularity, nothingexisted, not space, time, matter, or energy - nothing. So where and inwhat did the singularity appear if not in space? We don't know. We don't know where it came from, whyit's here, or even where it is. All we really know is that we are inside of it and at one time it didn't exist and

neither did we.

Big Bang Theory - Evidence for the Theory

What are the major evidences which support the Big Bang theory?

y First of all, we are reasonably certain that the universe had a beginning.

y Second, galaxies appear to be moving away from us at speeds proportional to their distance. Thisis called "Hubble's Law," named after Edwin Hubble (1889-1953) who discovered this

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phenomenon in 1929. This observation supports the expansion of the universe and suggests thatthe universe was once compacted.

y Third, if the universe was initially very, very hot as the Big Bang suggests, we should be able tofind some remnant of this heat. In 1965, Radioastronomers Arno Penzias and Robert Wilsondiscovered a 2.725 degree Kelvin (-454.765 degree Fahrenheit, -270.425 degree Celsius)Cosmic Microwave Background radiation (CMB) which pervades the observable universe. This isthought to be the remnant which scientists were looking for. Penzias and Wilson shared in the1978 Nobel Prize for Physics for their discovery.

y Finally, the abundance of the "light elements" Hydrogen and Helium found in the observableuniverse are thought to support the Big Bang model of origins.

Big Bang Theory - The Only Plausible Theory?Is the standard Big Bang theory the only model consistent with these evidences? No, it's just the mostpopular one. Internationally renown Astrophysicist George F. R. Ellis explains: "People need to be awarethat there is a range of models that could explain the observations.For instance, I can construct you aspherically symmetrical universe with Earth at its center, and you cannot disprove it based onobservations.You can only exclude it on philosophical grounds. In my view there is absolutely nothingwrong in that. What I want to bring into the open is the fact that we are using philosophical criteria inchoosing our models. A lot of cosmology tries to hide that."

4

In 2003, Physicist Robert Gentry proposed an attractive alternative to the standard theory, an alternativewhich also accounts for the evidences listed above.

5Dr. Gentry claims that the standard Big Bang model

is founded upon a faulty paradigm (the Friedmann-lemaitre expanding-spacetime paradigm) which heclaims is inconsistent with the empirical data. He chooses instead to base his model on Einstein's static-spacetime paradigm which he claims is the "genuine cosmic Rosetta." Gentry has published severalpapers outlining what he considers to be serious flaws in the standard Big Bang model.

6Other high-

profile dissenters include Nobel laureate Dr. Hannes Alfvn, Professor Geoffrey Burbidge, Dr. Halton Arp,and the renowned British astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle, who is accredited with first coining the term "the BigBang" during a BBC radio broadcast in 1950.

Big Bang Theory - What About God?

Any discussion of the Big Bang theory would be incomplete without asking the question, what about God?

This is because cosmogony (the study of the origin of the universe) is an area where science andtheology meet. Creation was a supernatural event. That is, it took place outside of the natural realm. This

fact begs the question: is there anything else which exists outside of the natural realm? Specifically, is

there a master Architect out there? We know that this universe had a beginning. Was God the "First

Cause"? We won't attempt to answer that question in this short article. We just ask the question: