I just finished reading
an article called “Candidate for Most Distant Galaxy Discovered.” It was
published today November 15, 2012! MACS0647-JD is the candidate for the most
distant galaxy discovered. It is known to be a very young and small galaxy.MACS0647-JD
size is equal to a small piece of our galaxy, the Milky Way. Wow that is small!
How do these scientists know if MACS0647-JD really is a galaxy? The team that’s
researching this is the Cluster Lensing And Supernova Survey with Hubble (CLASH).
Using gravitational lensing, which is “using massive galaxy clusters as cosmic
telescopes to magnify distant galaxies behind them.” this allows them to find
the galaxies. Hubble’s wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) and Advanced Camera for
Surveys (ACS) were used to observe MACS0647- JD. They saw the galaxy was visible in the two
reddest filters. ‘“So either MACS0647-JD is a very red object, only shining at
red wavelengths, or it is extremely distant and its light has been ‘redshifted’
to these wavelengths, or some combination of the two,” Coe (Dan Coe of the Space
Telescope Science Institute) said.
MACS0647-JD’s width is researched to be less than 600
light-years. That’s tiny compared to our galaxy which is 150,000 light years
across. This is impressive. It’s interesting to know that there are other
galaxies in space besides ours. I wonder
what further studies will reveal about the universe? I am going to my first
Astronomy club meeting tomorrow and I can’t wait to see what we’re going to talk
about.
View the article "Candidate for Most Disant Galaxy"
View the article "Candidate for Most Disant Galaxy"