what was the first galaxy discovered

Full Answer

When was the last planet to be discovered?

Saturn is the last planet whose discovery date cannot be pinpointed but it seems that it was first recorded by the Assyrians. They’re said to have written the oldest records of Saturn, or “the star of Ninib”, describing it as a sparkle in the night around 700 BC.

When was the Sphinx first discovered?

The monumental statue known to the world as the Great Sphinx of Giza is believed to have been built more than 4,500 years ago. While photography has only been around for about 200 years, photographers have flocked to the Giza pyramid complex to capture images of the enigmatic creature in the Egyptian desert.

When were galaxies first discovered?

Thomas Wright’s theory of galaxies was the first astronomical work to place our sun not in the center of the universe, but in a tightly packed cluster of stars that Wright called a galaxy. The year of discovery was 1750, informs Prof. Ashoka. A Different Truths exclusive. The discovery that stars are clumped into galaxies represents the first ...

When was the Milky Way galaxy discovered?

Proof of the Milky Way consisting of many stars came in 1610 when Galileo Galilei used a telescope to study the Milky Way and discovered that it is composed of a huge number of faint stars.

Who discovered the formation of a galaxy?

1962 — Olin Eggen, Donald Lynden-Bell, and Allan Sandage theorize galaxy formation by a single (relatively) rapid monolithic collapse, with the halo forming first, followed by the disk.

What year was the most distant galaxy seen?

2004 — The European Southern Observatory discovers Abell 1835 IR1916, the most distant galaxy yet seen from Earth. 2004 — The Arcminute Microkelvin Imager begins to map the distribution of distant clusters of galaxies.

What did Edwin Hubble prove?

1923 — Edwin Hubble resolves the Shapley–Curtis debate by finding Cepheids in the Andromeda Galaxy, definitively proving that there are other galaxies beyond the Milky Way.

How many objects were discovered in 1774?

1774 — Charles Messier releases a preliminary list of 45 Messier objects, three of which turn out to be the galaxies including Andromeda and Triangulum. By 1781 the final published list grows to 103 objects, 34 of which turn out to be galaxies. 1785 — William Herschel carried the first attempt to describe the shape of the Milky Way and ...

What is the Milky Way?

5th century BC — Democritus proposes that the bright band in the night sky known as the Milky Way might consist of stars, 4th century BC — Aristotle believes the Milky Way to be caused by "the ignition of the fiery exhalation of some stars which were large, numerous and close together" and that the "ignition takes place in the upper part ...

What nebula did Heber Curtis find?

1917 — Heber Curtis find novae in Andromeda Nebula M31 were ten magnitudes fainter than normal giving a distance estimate of 150,000 parsecs supporting the "island universes" or independent galaxies hypothesis for spiral nebulae.

How many objects did Messier discover?

1774 — Charles Messier releases a preliminary list of 45 Messier objects, three of which turn out to be the galaxies including Andromeda and Triangulum. By 1781 the final published list grows to 103 objects, 34 of which turn out to be galaxies.

How did the first galaxies form?

As time went on, more matter and stars were pulled onto these overdensities, resulting in the formation of the first galaxies. These galaxies then merged with other galaxies to form larger galaxies — and the whole process of galaxy buildup had begun.

When did the first generation of small galaxies start?

The first generation of small galaxies was likely well in place 400 million years after the Big Bang. Following this initial phase of galaxy formation, galaxies then went through an extended phase of merging and coalescence with other galaxies, whereby they built up from masses of several thousand solar masses to billions of solar masses.

How long after the Big Bang did hydrogen reionize?

This reionization process apparently began several hundred million years after the Big Bang and finished some 600 million years later. Currently, there is great interest in understanding the properties of the first galaxies because they likely played a key role in this process.

What were the first changes in the universe?

While conditions early on in the big bang were not appropriate for the generation of the heavier elements, such elements could easily be generated at the cores of massive stars and then later expelled into the surrounding universe when these stars explode as supernovae. The second profound change brought about this first generation of stars was the introduction of high-energy photons into the universe. Previously, the last the universe had seen of such high-energy photons was during the first 400,000 years of the universe when the universe was still very hot and hydrogen still existed in an ionized state.

How far back can we see the universe?

Since the first galaxies and stars are thought to form just 200-300 million years after the Big Bang, current observations are now bringing us very close to first light.

How did the universe start?

It is now widely agreed that the universe started in a hot big bang. The quantum fluctuations which were present shortly after the Planck time were blown up onto macroscopic scales by a short period of highly rapid growth during the first 10-32 seconds of the universe. The early period of rapid growth is called inflation ...

When was the last time the universe had high energy photons?

Previously, the last the universe had seen of such high-energy photons was during the first 400,000 years of the universe when the universe was still very hot and hydrogen still existed in an ionized state. These high-energy photons started what was likely a rather extended process by which hydrogen in the universe was reionized.

When was Hubble's discovery first made?

As a result, the first public announcement of his astronomical breakthrough was a small story that ran in The New York Times on November 23, 1924.

Who was the scientist who discovered the spiral nebula?

Edwin Hubble at the controls of the 100-inch telescope at Mount Wilson, circa 1922. (Credit: Huntington Library) Always cautious when it came to theory and interpretation, Hubble focused his scientific attention on the spiral nebulae without overtly endorsing the “island universe” interpretation.

What is the significance of spiral nebulae?

The significance of those ubiquitous objects was a mystery, however. Some researchers speculated that the spiral nebulae were huge and distant systems of stars, “island universes” comparable to our Milky Way galaxy. But many others were equally convinced that the spirals were small, nearby clouds of gas.

How did Hubble find the star Andromeda?

Clinching proof came in October of 1923, when Hubble spied the telltale flicker of a lone Cepheid variable star in one of Andromeda’s arms. This type of star grows brighter and dimmer in a regular and predictable way, with its intrinsic luminosity directly related to its period of variation. Simply by timing the 31-day cycle of this star as it slowly flickered, Hubble could deduce its distance. His estimate was 930,000 light years–less than half the modern estimate, but a shockingly large number at the time. That distance placed Andromeda, one of the brightest and presumably closest of the spiral nebulae, vastly outside the bounds of the Milky Way.

What is the most famous nebula?

All across the sky, observers had documented intriguing spiral nebulae, swirls of light that resembled ghostly pinwheels in space. The most famous one, the Andromeda nebula, was so prominent that it was easily visible to the naked eye on a dark night. The significance of those ubiquitous objects was a mystery, however.

How far away is the Andromeda galaxy?

By modern reckoning, the Andromeda galaxy is 2.5 million light-years away, which means the light we see now started on its way earthward 2.5 million years ago. That is, we are seeing the stars in Andromeda that are not only 2.5 million light years away, but also living 2.5 million years in the past.

Who was the leading proponent of the spiral nebula?

Now that there could be no doubt, he wrote to his arch-rival Harlow Shapley — a leading proponent of the idea that the spiral nebula were small and nearby — to needle him with the news. “You will be interested to hear that I have found a Cepheid variable in the Andromeda Nebula,” the letter began.

When were galaxies discovered?

The discovery of the nature of galaxies as distinct from other nebulae ( interstellar clouds) was made in the 1920s. The first attempts at systematic catalogues of galaxies were made in the 1960s, with the Catalogue of Galaxies and Clusters of Galaxies listing 29,418 galaxies and galaxy clusters, and with the Morphological Catalogue of Galaxies, a putatively complete list of galaxies with photographic magnitude above 15, listing 30,642. In the 1980s, the Lyons Groups of Galaxies listed 485 galaxy groups with 3,933 member galaxies. Galaxy Zoo is a project aiming at a more comprehensive list: launched in July 2007, it has classified over one million galaxy images from The Sloan Digital Sky Survey, The Hubble Space Telescope and the Cosmic Assembly Near-Infrared Deep Extragalactic Legacy Survey.

When were Seyfert galaxies first observed?

The characteristics of Seyfert galaxies were first observed in M77 in 1908; however, Seyferts were defined as a class in 1943.

How many galaxies are there in the universe?

There are about 51 galaxies in the Local Group (see list of nearest galaxies for a complete list), on the order of 100,000 in our Local Supercluster, and an estimated 100 billion in all of the observable universe. The discovery of the nature of galaxies as distinct from other nebulae ( interstellar clouds) was made in the 1920s.

What is the most distant galaxy?

This is a radio galaxy. At the time of its discovery, quasar PC 1247-3406 at z=4.73, discovered in 1991 was the most remote object known. This was the last radio galaxy to hold the title of most distant galaxy. This was the first galaxy, as opposed to quasar, that was found beyond redshift 4.

How are galaxies identified?

Mostly they are identified by their celestial coordinates together with the name of the observing project ( HUDF, SDSS, 3C, CFHQS, NGC/IC, etc.)

What is the name of the galaxy that is shortened from the constellation of Andromeda?

This is a list of galaxies that are well known by something other than an entry in a catalog or list, or a set of coordinates, or a systematic designation. Andromeda, which is shortened from "Andromeda Galaxy", gets its name from the area of the sky in which it appears, the constellation of Andromeda.

Which galaxy has the brightest stars?

Galaxy Cosmos Redshift 7 is reported to be the brightest of distant galaxies (z > 6) and to contain some of the earliest first stars ( first generation; Population III) that produced the chemical elements needed for the later formation of planets and life as we know it.

Overview

Early 21st century

• 2001 — First data release from the ongoing Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• 2004 — The European Southern Observatory discovers Abell 1835 IR1916, the most distant galaxy yet seen from Earth.
• 2004 — The Arcminute Microkelvin Imager begins to map the distribution of distant clusters of galaxies

Pre-20th century

Early 20th century

Mid-20th century

Late 20th century

See also