Standing beside the Milky Way. Drowming out the night sky blocks us off from nature, and that's not good for humans. Credit: P. Horálek/ESO
Where are we? Cosmically, we’re in our home galaxy, typically known as the Milky Way. The center of our galaxy is marked by a supermassive black hole, which the Sun orbits at a distance of about 30,000 light-years. The official distance, set by the International Astronomical Union in 1985, is 27,700 light-years. But a new study as confirmed we are actually a bit closer to the black hole.
Once I accidentally took a photo of one of the most important stars in the Universe…
Andromeda Galaxy imaged at the SFU Trotter Observatory processed by Matthew Cimone
That star highlighted in the photo is called M31_V1 and resides in the Andromeda Galaxy. The Andromeda – AKA M31- is the closest galaxy to our own Milky Way. But before it was known as a galaxy, it was called the Andromeda Nebula. Before this particular star in Andromeda was studied by Edwin Hubble, namesake of the Hubble Space Telescope, we didn’t actually know if other galaxies even existed. Think about that! As recently as a hundred years ago, we thought the Milky Way might be the ENTIRE Universe. Even then…that’s pretty big. The Milky Way is on the order of 150,000 light years across. A light year is about 10 TRILLION kilometers so even at the speed of light it would take nearly the same length of time to cross the Milky Way as humans have existed on planet Earth. M31_V1 changed all that.
New research indicates that there could be as many as 2 trillion galaxies in the known Universe. Credit: 2MASS/Caltech
Ever since human beings learned that the Milky Way was not unique or alone in the night sky, astronomers and cosmologists have sought to find out just how many galaxies there are in the Universe. And until recently, our greatest scientific minds believed they had a pretty good idea – between 100 and 200 billion.
However, a new study produced by researchers from the UK has revealed something startling about the Universe. Using Hubble’s Deep Field Images and data from other telescopes, they have concluded that these previous estimates were off by a factor of about 10. The Universe, as it turns out, may have had up to 2 trillion galaxies in it during the course of its history.
Led by Prof. Christopher Conselice of the University of Nottingham, U.K., the team combined images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope with other published data to produced a 3-D map of the Universe. They then incorporated a series of new mathematical models that allowed them to infer the existence of galaxies which are not bright enough to be observed by current instruments.
Scientists from the UK have produced new estimates on the number of galaxies in the Universe, which could shed light on cosmic evolution as well. Credit: NASA/Chandra
Using these, they then began reviewing how galaxies have evolved over the past 13 billion years. What they learned was quite fascinating. For one, they observed that the distribution of galaxies throughout the history of the Universe was not even. What’s more, they found that in order for everything in their calculations to add up, there had to be 10 times more galaxies in the early Universe than previously thought.
Most of these galaxies would be similar in mass to the satellite galaxies that have been observed around the Milky Way, and would be too faint to be spotted by today’s instruments. In other words, astronomers have only been able to see about 10% of the early Universe until now, because most of its galaxies were too small and faint to be visible.
As Prof. Conselice explained in a Hubble Science Release, while may help resolve a lingering debate about the structure of the Universe:
“These results are powerful evidence that a significant galaxy evolution has taken place throughout the universe’s history, which dramatically reduced the number of galaxies through mergers between them — thus reducing their total number. This gives us a verification of the so-called top-down formation of structure in the universe.”
Illustration of the depth by which Hubble imaged galaxies in prior Deep Field initiatives, in units of the Age of the Universe. Credit: NASA and A. Feild (STScI)
To break it down, the “top-down model” of galaxy formation states that galaxies formed from huge gas clouds larger than the resulting galaxies. These clouds began collapsing because their internal gravity was stronger than the pressures in the cloud. Based on the speed at which the gas clouds rotated, they would either form a spiral or an elliptical galaxy.
In contrast, the “bottom-up model” states that galaxies formed during the early Universe due to the merging of smaller clumps that were about the size globular clusters. These galaxies could then have been drawn into clusters and superclusters by their mutual gravity.
In addition to helping to resolve this debate, this study also offers a possible solution to the Olbers’ Paradox (aka. “the dark night sky paradox”). Named after the 18th/19th century German astronomer Heinrich Wilhelm Olbers, this paradox addresses the question of why – given the expanse of the Universe and all the luminous matter in it – is the sky dark at night?
Based on their results, the UK team has surmised that while every point in the night sky contains part of a galaxy, most of them are invisible to the human eye and modern telescopes. This is due to a combination of factors, which includes the effects of cosmic redshift, the fact that the Universe is dynamic (i.e. always expanding) and the absorption of light by cosmic dust and gas.
Image was taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope which covers a portion of the southern field of Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey (GOODS). Credit: NASA/ESA/HST
Needless to say, future missions will be needed to confirm the existence of all these unseen galaxies. And in that respect, Conselice and his colleagues are looking to future missions – ones that are capable of observing stars and galaxies in the non-visible spectrum – to make that happen.
“It boggles the mind that over 90 percent of the galaxies in the universe have yet to be studied,” he added. “Who knows what interesting properties we will find when we discover these galaxies with future generations of telescopes? In the near future, the James Webb Space Telescope will be able to study these ultra-faint galaxies.”
Understanding how many galaxies have existed over time is a fundamental aspect of understanding the Universe as a whole. With every passing study that attempts to resolve what we can see with our current cosmological models, we are getting that much closer!
And be sure to enjoy this video about some of Hubble’s most stunning images, courtesy of HubbleESA:
Interactive scale of the universe, created by Fotoshop on NewGrounds. Click to access.
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Via the Bad Astronomer, check out this incredible interactive Flash animation from NewGrounds that provides a scale of the Universe, from the very small (0.0000000001 yoctometers) to as large as we know, the estimated size of the Universe. Click on the image, or here to access, and after it loads, use the slider at the bottom to zoom in and out. Gives you a new appreciation for all that’s out there, big and small!
