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A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away . . .
July/August 2008
by Bruce Fellman
Using the Hubble Space Telescope and a telescope in
Chile trained on a patch of Southern Hemisphere sky, Yale astronomer Pieter van
Dokkum and his colleagues have discovered nine ultra-small, ultra-dense, and
ultra-unusual galaxies. These objects are so far away that their light has
traveled for about 11 billion years, says van Dokkum, so the researchers are
seeing a snapshot of what the universe, which began 13.7 billion years ago,
looked like in its early days. (The research appeared in the April 10 issue of
the Astrophysical Journal Letters.)
"It would have been hard then to find a place
remotely like what we see at present," he says. Our own Milky Way is more than
20 times bigger than these compact structures because "over time, galaxies have
grown and evolved," says van Dokkum. "We don't yet know precisely how galaxies
have expanded. Investigating these early ones will give us clues." 
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