'Dropouts' pinpoint earliest galaxies
Sunday, November 8, 2009 - 07:35
in Astronomy & Space
Astronomers, conducting the broadest survey to date of galaxies from about 800 million years after the Big Bang, have found 22 early galaxies and confirmed the age of one by its characteristic hydrogen signature at 787 million years post Big Bang. The finding is the first age-confirmation of a so-called dropout galaxy at that distant time and pinpoints when an era called the reionisation epoch likely began. The research will be published in a December issue of the Astrophysical Journal...