badastronomy.com — Images made by taking very deep exposures, then subtracting away all known light sources appear to show the light from the very first stars in the universe. Still up for debate but moving through the peer review system
Jul 3, 2007 View in Crawl 4
badastronomerJul 3, 2007
It's really hard to say what this light is coming from. It appears to be real, in that it's not something inside the telescope or detector; it's coming from space. But we're just not sure what it's *from*. There may be some underlying faint galaxies, or it might be from the first stars. Whatever it is, it's *interesting*!
majordickJul 4, 2007
Ah....I'm not sure about this. This could be anything. I wouldn't know what the hell the first stars looked like so if someone shows me I have to take it with a grain of salt. Hey! It could be lots of grains of salt.
davidgxJul 4, 2007
religion says what now?
raid517Jul 4, 2007
Well if I were religious (which I'm not) I guess I'd say "bite me."
pw378Jul 4, 2007
bar10dr:I mean if the light from them is hitting us now that means we traveled faster than light to get here?We didn't travel faster than light, but we did in the relativistic sense. The first stars 'ignited' about 400 million years after the big bang, which means the universe was already pretty big, particularly due to the rapid 'inflation' that is theorized in the first instants of universal existence. Light from one end of the universe that began its trip to the other side would be required to travel not only the width of the existing Universe, but also the newly created 'space' of the constantly expanding Universe. Kind of a strange concept to wrap your head around for most folks.