NASA Telescope Picks Up Glow of Universe's First Objects (Spitzer)

Whitney Clavin 818-354-4673
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

News Release: 2006-150 Dec. 18, 2006

NASA Telescope Picks Up Glow of Universe's First Objects

NASA Telescope Picks Up Glow of Universe's First Objects
New observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope
strongly suggest that infrared light detected in a prior
study originated from clumps of the very first objects
of the universe. The recent data indicate this patchy
light is splattered across the entire sky and comes
from clusters of bright, monstrous objects more than
13 billion light-years away.

"We are pushing our telescopes to the limit and are
tantalizingly close to getting a clear picture of the
very first collections of objects," said Dr. Alexander
Kashlinsky of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center,
Greenbelt, Md., lead author on two reports to appear
in the Astrophysical Journal Letters. "Whatever these
objects are, they are intrinsically incredibly bright
and very different from anything in existence today."

Astronomers believe the objects are either the first
stars -- humongous stars more than 1,000 times the
mass of our sun -- or voracious black holes that are
consuming gas and spilling out tons of energy. If the
objects are stars, then the observed clusters might
be the first mini-galaxies containing a mass of less
than about one million suns. The Milky Way galaxy
holds the equivalent of approximately 100 billion
suns and was probably created when mini-galaxies
like these merged.

This study is a thorough follow-up to an initial
observation presented in Nature in November 2005 by
Kashlinksy and his team. The new analysis covered
five sky regions and involved hundreds of hours of
observation time.

Scientists say that space, time and matter originated
13.7 billion years ago in a tremendous explosion
called the Big Bang. Observations of the cosmic
microwave background by a co-author of the recent
Spitzer studies, Dr. John Mather of Goddard, and his
science team strongly support this theory. Mather is
a co-winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize for Physics for
this work. Another few hundred million years or so
would pass before the first stars would form, ending
the so-called dark age of the universe.

With Spitzer, Kashlinsky's group studied the cosmic
infrared background, a diffuse light from this early
epoch when structure first emerged. Some of the light
comes from stars or black hole activity so distant
that, although it originated as ultraviolet and
optical light, its wavelengths have been stretched
to infrared wavelengths by the growing space-time
that causes the universe's expansion. Other parts
of the cosmic infrared background are from distant
starlight absorbed by dust and re-emitted as
infrared light.

"There's ongoing debate about what the first objects
were and how galaxies formed," said Dr. Harvey Moseley
of Goddard, a co-author on the papers. "We are on the
right track to figuring this out. We've now reached
the hilltop and are looking down on the village below,
trying to make sense of what's going on."

The analysis first involved carefully removing the
light from all foreground stars and galaxies in the
five regions of the sky, leaving only the most
ancient light. The scientists then studied
fluctuations in the intensity of infrared brightness,
in the relatively diffuse light. The fluctuations
revealed a clustering of objects that produced the
observed light pattern.

"Imagine trying to see fireworks at night from across
a crowded city," said Kashlinsky. "If you could turn
off the city lights, you might get a glimpse at the
fireworks. We have shut down the lights of the
universe to see the outlines of its first fireworks."

Mather, who is senior project scientist for NASA's
future James Webb Space Telescope, said, "Spitzer
has paved the way for the James Webb Space Telescope,
which should be able to identity the nature of the
clusters."

This analysis was partially funded through the
National Science Foundation. Science support to
NASA Goddard is supplied by Science Systems and
Applications, Inc. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
Pasadena, Calif., manages the Spitzer mission for
NASA. Science operations are conducted at the
Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute
of Technology in Pasadena. The observations were
made by Spitzer's infrared array camera, which was
built by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center,
Greenbelt, Md. The instrument's principal
investigator is Dr. Giovanni Fazio of the
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

For graphics and more information about Spitzer:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/spitzer/main/index.html .

Additional media contact: Josh Chamot of National
Science Foundation, 703-292-7730.

-end-

.

Relevant Pages

  • Spitzer Spies Parallelogram-Shaped Galactic Meal
    ... CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY ... Peering into the "gut" of the galaxy Centaurus A, NASA's Spitzer Space ... Telescope has captured in unprecedented detail this massive galaxy's ...
    (sci.astro)
  • Re: want some hints on this topic....
    ... A given telescope is less costly to deploy, ... in LEO as opposed to the moon. ... Spitzer appears to be doing well. ...
    (sci.astro.amateur)