A glimpse of ancient dying stars

[emad]

Astronomers have revealed faint images of the two oldest and most distant supernovae to be discovered to date.

When a massive star effectively runs out of nuclear fuel, it explodes in a supernova - releasing all of its material into space.

The scientists described in the journal Nature how they gathered images of the exploding stars by monitoring the same galaxies over five years.

They used multiple images to pick out supernovae in the distant Universe.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8141395.stm

[byronius]

1. Great post.

[steven johnson]

2. These are some of the oldest stars ever seen

The are images of some of the earliest stars -- when the universe was 2 to 3 billion years old.

The supernovae Cooke and colleagues found occurred 11 billion years ago. The next-farthest large supernova known occurred about 6 billion years ago.

"The universe is about 13.7 billion years old, so really we are seeing some of the first stars ever formed," Cooke said.


Cooke and other scientists with UCI's Center for Cosmology last year discovered a cluster of galaxies in a very early stage of formation that occurred 11.4 billion years ago, the farthest of its kind ever detected. The galaxy proto-cluster, named LBG-2377, is giving cosmologists unprecedented insight into galaxy formation and the evolution of the universe.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090708132803.htm