Astronomers Say They've Found Oldest Galaxy So Far

European astronomers believe that they have found the oldest galaxy so far. An image from the Hubble Telescope reveals an image of a galaxy that may be 13.1 billion years old. "We're looking at the universe when it was a 20th of its current age," said California Institute of Technology astronomy professor Richard Ellis, who wasn't part of the discovery team. "In human terms, we're looking at a 4-year-old boy in the life span of an adult." If this galaxy is as old as astronomers think it is, then it would fit right into the timeline with the formation of the Earth, and life as we know it. Some astronomers are skeptical about the age of the galaxy, but they cannot deny that it is a great find.
How do astronomers determine how old a galaxy is? They study light signatures of different gasses. By looking at light signatures of cooling hydrogen gas for about sixteen hours, astronomers were able to estimate the age of this galaxy. But they are not actually seeing the galaxy in it's present form. "Because it takes so long for the light to travel such a vast time and distance, astronomers are seeing what the galaxy looked like 13.1 billion years ago at a time when it was quite young — maybe even as young as 100 million years old — Lehnert said. It has very little of the carbon or metal that we see in more mature stars and is full of young, blue massive stars, he said. This galaxy may not even exist anymore. We may actually be looking into the past and seeing what came before our own galaxy. There is no way to tell if the galaxy is still there, or if it has merged into other, larger, galaxies. But by using what we know about our universe and this new finding, we may be able to better understand how and why galaxies form. It may also lead us to find more galaxies far, far away.
Jennifer Cullen