Astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have measured accurate
distances to several faint, red galaxies seen in the Hubble Ultra Deep
Field, confirming that three fourths are among the most distant galaxies
yet studied. This is a milestone because the Hubble data provide spectra
of objects 10 times fainter than have been studied with spectrometers on
ground-based telescopes. This allows researchers to probe the common
galaxies in the early universe, which are believed to be responsible for
most of the energy output at that time, and perhaps also for ionizing
and heating the tenuous gas in between galaxies. Surprisingly, the
distant galaxies are similar in many ways to their considerably closer
descendants.
Sangeeta Malhotra, Norbert Pirzkal, Chun Xu, and James Rhoads, of the
Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Md., are reporting these
results June 2 at the American Astronomical Society’s annual meeting in
Denver on behalf of the GRAPES (Grism ACS Program for Extragalactic
Science) Team.
The observations were made with Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys.
To see and read more, please visit:
http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/newsdesk/archive/nuggets/1086193800
http://www-int.stsci.edu/~san/Grapes/
