This image shows a “slice” of the Universe some 11 billion years back in time. The shape is that of the Hubble tuning fork diagram, which describes and separates galaxies according to their morphology into spiral (S), elliptical (E), and lenticular (S0) galaxies. On the left of this diagram are the ellipticals, with lenticulars in the middle, and the spirals branching out on the right side. The spirals on the bottom branch have bars cutting through their centers. The galaxies at these distances from us are small and still in the process of forming. This image is illustrative; the Hubble images used were selected based on their appearance. The individual distance to these galaxies is only approximate.
Credit: NASA, ESA, M. Kornmesser
A research team led by Bomee Lee of University of Massachusetts reported that ~11 billion years ago large galaxies had the same ratio of young (blue) to old (red) galaxies.
Galaxies can be objectively divided into two types: Blue means Young galaxies, and Red means Old ones. Young blue galaxies are rich in star formation, while red galaxies have little star formation.
Galaxy color-magnitude diagram
Credit: Wikipedia
New Scientist’s Lisa Grossman obtained a quote from team advisor Mauro Giavalisco —
Lisa writes
“The team analysed 1671 massive galaxies. Even back then, the familiar breakdown of galactic shapes was clearly apparent: the same fraction of galaxies was blue and disc-shaped, while the others were red and globular.”
Commentary:
This is a stunning strong finding supporting a Static Open universe.
If the Big Bang conjectures were viable, the ratio of old red galaxies should be dramatically less that the fraction of young blue galaxies so close to the purported time of inception.
But they are not less – the ratio of old red galaxies to young blue galaxies from 11 billion years ago is essentially identical to galaxies nearby in distance and recent in time.
This is powerful evidence for a Static Open universe.
References:
1. Astronomers show galaxies had ‘mature’ shapes 11.5 billion years ago, Press Release U Mass
Bomee Lee, Lead researcher
2. CANDELS: THE CORRELATION BETWEEN GALAXY MORPHOLOGY AND STAR FORMATION ACTIVITY AT z ~ 2
Bomee Lee, Mauro Giavalisco, Christina C. Williams, Yicheng Guo, Jennifer Lotz, Arjen Van der Wel, Henry C. Ferguson, S. M. Faber, Anton Koekemoer, Norman Grogin, Dale Kocevski, Christopher J. Conselice, Stijn Wuyts, Avishai Dekel, Jeyhan Kartaltepe, and Eric F. Bell
Abstract
We discuss the state of the assembly of the Hubble sequence in the mix of bright galaxies at redshift 1.4 < z = 2.5 with a large sample of 1671 galaxies down to H AB ~ 26, selected from the HST/ACS and WFC3 images of the GOODS-South field obtained as part of the GOODS and CANDELS observations.
We investigate the relationship between the star formation properties and morphology using various parametric diagnostics, such as the Sérsic light profile, Gini (G), M 20, concentration (C), asymmetry (A), and multiplicity (?) parameters.
Our sample clearly separates into massive, red, and passive galaxies versus less massive, blue, and star-forming ones, and this dichotomy correlates very well with the galaxies’ morphological properties. Star-forming galaxies show a broad variety of morphological features, including clumpy structures and bulges mixed with faint low surface brightness features, generally characterized by disky-type light profiles.
Passively evolving galaxies, on the other hand, very often have compact light distribution and morphology typical of today’s spheroidal systems. We also find that artificially redshifted local galaxies have a similar distribution with z ~ 2 galaxies in a G-M 20 plane.
Visual inspection between the rest-frame optical and UV images show that there is a generally weak morphological k-correction for galaxies at z ~ 2, but the comparison with non-parametric measures show that galaxies in the rest-frame UV are somewhat clumpier than rest-frame optical.
Similar general trends are observed in the local universe among massive galaxies, suggesting that the backbone of the Hubble sequence was already in place at z ~ 2.
