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Mysterious Space Blob Discovered At Cosmic Dawn

sciencedaily.com — Using information from a suite of telescopes, astronomers have discovered a mysterious, giant object that existed at a time when the universe was only about 800 million years old. Objects such as this one are dubbed extended Lyman-Alpha blobs; they are huge bodies of gas that may be precursors to galaxies.

Who dugg this? Made popular Apr 23, 2009

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  • SWQ87, on 04/23/2009, -0/+19They should talk to some people over at CSI to unpixilate and enhance that image
  • michaelpinto, on 04/23/2009, -1/+18It's the giant space amoeba I tell ya! http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Space_amoeba
  • FutureisDubious, on 04/23/2009, -0/+14Relax guys...

    http://imgur.com/1r4p.png
  • zetetic, on 04/23/2009, -2/+15Flying Spaghetti Monster, no doubt...
  • drmangrum, on 04/23/2009, -0/+12Nebula form stars.

    This is is the size of a galaxy.
  • KalZakath, on 04/23/2009, -0/+11Just keep the telescope focused on it and it won't able to move
  • angusm, on 04/23/2009, -0/+10"The blob is assisting galactic law enforcement officials in an investigation related to the incident known as the Big Bang, and has been enrolled in a witness protection program. Its appearance has therefore been pixelated to protect its identity."
  • inactive, on 04/23/2009, -0/+10I see pixels.
  • stickyman, on 04/23/2009, -0/+10No, its the FSM
  • inactive, on 04/23/2009, -0/+8It no longer exists.
  • no1nos, on 04/23/2009, -0/+8I hate when astronomical structures are referred to only as 'huge' in their descriptions. That's such a meaningless description in astronomy that it gives you no perception of the size. One man's AU can be another man's parsec. Please stick to using units of measurement when describing astronomical objects.
  • MechaMurloc, on 04/23/2009, -1/+8You seem to have forgotten your /s tag..
  • Harabeck, on 04/23/2009, -1/+8Except it doesn't.
  • Mokshaguy390, on 04/23/2009, -0/+6I'm actually interested in why you think so. Please, explain.
  • Simplysped, on 04/23/2009, -0/+5how is this different from a nebula?
  • maotx, on 04/23/2009, -0/+5Obvious troll
  • noahhoward, on 04/23/2009, -0/+5And the Epic of Giglamesh proves that the rage of Enkidu and Humbaba separated the Syria mountains from Lebanon. What's your point?
  • VivaNOLA, on 04/23/2009, -0/+5Prepare for visual disappointment.
  • lukemit, on 04/23/2009, -0/+5What do you mean relax!? Those things never stop chasing you. Walls cannot stop them. Our only hope is to find a pipe that the entire Earth can fit in to.
  • Mookeh, on 04/23/2009, -3/+7See? Elvis is not dead. He just went home.
  • seltaeb4, on 04/23/2009, -1/+5"Mysterious Space Blob Discovered At Cosmic Dawn"

    Yeah, that was going to be the best Hendrix album ever. They were only starting pre-production. :(
  • FattyMagee, on 04/23/2009, -2/+6I want that organism alive.
    What about the civilians?
    They're expendable...
  • CJDarkhaven, on 04/23/2009, -1/+4Nice reference from The Blob '88 :) Some people here may be too young to have caught it.
  • Gr00ver, on 04/23/2009, -2/+5That's no moon..
  • awtripp, on 04/23/2009, -0/+3I thought it said at "Comic Con" ... I read the paragraph and thought it was going to be a poke a fat, farting nerds.
  • inactive, on 04/23/2009, -0/+3Looks like we've reached the resolution limit of the deep space projection the aliens are beaming at us.
  • icecycles, on 04/23/2009, -1/+4Mario has been throwing fireballs for many millenia.
  • portableteejay, on 04/23/2009, -1/+4But does it taste like raspberries?
  • wjlaw100, on 04/23/2009, -1/+4You know with those Physics guys... if we see something out there we don't understand, its gas. in this case 55,000 light years wide area of gas. That's a lot of gas.
  • gcnaddict, on 04/23/2009, -0/+3http://www.ciw.edu/news/mysterious_space_blob_disc ...

    The Carnegie Institution for Science is the institution which led the find.
  • atlantocide, on 04/23/2009, -0/+2"The farther out we look into space, the farther we go back in time"
    Maybe he read that and just assumed that it was referring to time travel being possible?
    I don't know, I'm grasping at straws here...
  • Harabeck, on 04/23/2009, -0/+2Yes, but even now the most common element is hydrogen. This was even more the case near the beginning of the universe. The heavier elements are formed within stars.
  • SpeedSteamBoat, on 04/23/2009, -0/+2No it couldn't. See -> Relativity
  • inactive, on 04/23/2009, -0/+2Sounds more like Hawkwind.
  • FeloniusMonkey, on 04/23/2009, -0/+2Whooooooooooooo..... lives in a pineapple far as can be?
    (SPACE BLOB SQUARE PANTS!)
  • Harabeck, on 04/23/2009, -0/+2Seeing light given off by celestial bodies millions or billions of years ago is not the same as actually traveling back in time.

    Also, what about this is new in that respect? Are you just now reading about anything astronomy related?
  • pln2bz, on 04/23/2009, -0/+1Re: "I am very surprised by this discovery. I have never imagined that such a large object could exist at this early stage of the universe's history. According to the concordance model of Big Bang cosmology, small objects form first and then merge to produce larger systems. This blob had a size of typical present-day galaxies when the age of the universe was about 800 million years old, only 6% of the age of today's universe!"

    One wonders why they are surprised, as this observation of a large object near the beginning of time follows the observation of large galaxies at 5 billion years after the supposed Big Bang event ...

    From http://www.physorg.com/news151766798.html ...

    [begin quote]

    The accepted model until now has as its basis the idea of spherical gas infall into a central disk, followed by mergers between disks. The assumption is that the stars formed slowly within the gaseous disks, and that the disks converted into globes when they merged. In such a merger, the colliding gas clouds produce a big burst of new stars at a rate of hundreds of solar masses per year.

    This model has lately been put to question as a result of astronomical observations using new and more powerful telescopes which enable observations at greater depth into the Universe, making it possible thus to examine what happened in the galaxies some ten billion years ago (about three billion years after the Big Bang which first established the Universe). "The large galaxies, as they appear in this early stage, indeed created stars at a very rapid rate, but this does not appear to be at all a result of galactic mergers," says Prof. Dekel. The astronomical observations were led by researchers in Garching, Germany, headed by Prof. Reinhard Genzel of the Max Planck Institute, whose group is collaborating with the Hebrew University researchers.

    The question that emerged was how these galaxies were able to form stars so quickly and in large quantities at such an early stage without massive galactic mergers.

    [end quote]

    How many times are scientists permitted to be surprised by the same finding? It seems to me the mystery of the object's size only exists if you assume that the Universe began in a Big Bang.
  • noahhoward, on 04/24/2009, -0/+1Shows what happens when you abandon a physics degree and work on computers instead. Thanks, that should have been obvious.
  • canchin, on 04/23/2009, -0/+1So my usual question when these multi-billion light year away objects are found...where is it today and what does it look like now?
  • adamc7, on 04/24/2009, -0/+1Space blob = Venom
  • UnPaddieTitled, on 04/23/2009, -1/+2"This blob was named Himiko for a legendary, mysterious Japanese queen."

    *sigh* Weeaboos really are everywhere these days.
  • Philbert, on 04/23/2009, -0/+1Was it all gooey and came out of a supermarket vending machine?
  • inactive, on 04/24/2009, -0/+1Wait, Ill just write a GUI in Visual Basic....
  • inactive, on 04/23/2009, -0/+1^Our galaxy cannot travel faster than the light it is emitting.
  • christoast, on 04/23/2009, -3/+4http://www.pokemonelite2000.com/ani092.gif
  • Elranzer, on 04/23/2009, -1/+2Hammer Bros. suit can defeat it...
  • wjlaw100, on 04/23/2009, -0/+1In my universe it would be tootsie-rolls....

    How about particles of matter, dust, Ice, I'm under the impression Saturn''s rings actually are tiny particles, NOT gas, yet looks similar even at the close distance Saturn is.

  • lemonfruittree, on 04/23/2009, -0/+1OMG they found Jaba the hut!
  • noahhoward, on 04/23/2009, -0/+1Could you expand on that? I was joking but now I'm curious, why can't it be light from the birth of our galaxy?
  • Harabeck, on 04/23/2009, -0/+1Well if it's not gas, then it's....? Liquid? Solid? I mean, does it seem reasonable to you that such a body would be anything but gas?
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