Editing Newsletter/Summer 2008 (section)

== Star Making Machine ==
compiled by [[herbalsheila]]

Where do stars come from? How do they form? Have they always been here or, like people, do they have a start and an end?

The answer seems to have been found. Astronomers with NASA’s Jet propulsion Laboratory that manages the Spritzer Space Telescope for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington have discovered a galaxy that they have nicknamed ‘Baby Boomer’ that pumps out new stars at the fantastic rate of up to 4,000 per year. 

In contrast, our own Milky Way Galaxy laboriously churns out only 10 new stars per year. 
[[Image:Baby Boom Galaxy Sm.JPG|350px|thumb|right|Green (visible-light wavelengths) denotes gas in the Baby Boom galaxy, while blue (also visible light) shows galaxies in the foreground that are not producing nearly as many stars. Yellow/orange (near-infrared light) indicates starlight from the outer portion of Baby Boom. The red blob to the left is another foreground galaxy that is not producing a lot of stars. NASA/JPL-Caltech/Subaru]]
Using the Hubble and Spritzer Space telescopes and the Subaru Telescope in Hawaii, among others, this galaxy is on its way to becoming a gigantic grouping of stars, one of the bigger galaxies in the known universe. The Hierarchical Model theorizes that galaxies slowly bulk up their stars over time by absorbing tiny pieces of other galaxies, kind of like a parent slowly birthing and raising a few children at a time, given relationship ties. 

Instead, "This galaxy is undergoing a major baby boom, producing most of its stars all at once," said Peter Capak of NASA's Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena. "If our human population was produced in a similar boom, then almost all of the people alive today would be the same age." 

The star factory galaxy was spotted due to its intense light. This brightness is a measure of its extreme star-formation rate and has set new records for emitting the most light. 

When stars are born, they shine with a lot of ultraviolet light, produce a lot of dust and hard radiation. The dust absorbs the ultraviolet light but, like your car in your driveway sitting in intense summer sunlight, it gets warm and re-emits light at infrared and submillimeter wavelengths. So the Baby Boomer Galaxy stands out from its nearest neighbors with its more youthful glow.

With this galaxy pumping out this many stars at one time, does it pose a threat to us?  Using measuring equipment from W. M. Keck Optical Measurement Laboratory which provides a[[Image:ZW2-96 Baby Boom lookalike Sm.JPG|325px|thumb|left|The most active star-forming galaxy in the distant universe, nicknamed the "Baby Boomer" galaxy, loosely resembles the prolific star making galaxy shown here, called Zw II 96.]]
suite of general purpose and specialized optical measurement instruments including laser guides, astronomers have estimated that Baby Boomer is 12.3 billion light-years away. On a cosmic scale, studying this new young galaxy now is like looking back into the past when the universe was a mere 1.3 billion years old. Scientists presently estimate the universe to be 13.7 billion years old. It is too far away to be any type of danger in the near future for our planet.

"If the universe was a human reaching retirement age, it would have been about 6 years old at the time we are seeing this galaxy," said Capak.

To determine the distance from Earth, measurements were made using radio wavelengths with the National Science Foundation's Very Large Array in New Mexico, USA. This gave astronomers the ability to calculate star birthing and development rate of about 1,000 to 4,000 stars per year. Only 50 million years would then be necessary for Baby Boomer to grow into a large massive galaxy as some of the Milky Way’s neighbors have done. Though nearby galaxies can produce stars at simlilar rates, they tend to be more mature, at only 11.7 billion light-years away or when the universe was 1.9 billion years old.  

"Before now, we had only seen galaxies form stars like this in the teenaged universe, but this galaxy is forming when the universe was only a child," said Capak. "The question now is whether the majority of the very most massive galaxies form very early in the universe like the Baby Boom galaxy, or whether this is an exceptional case. Answering this question will help us determine to what degree the Hierarchical Model of galaxy formation still holds true." 

"The incredible star-formation activity we have observed suggests that we may be witnessing, for the first time, the formation of one of the most massive elliptical galaxies in the universe," said Nick Scoville, Professor of Astronomy at CalTech in Pasadena, CA, now serving as Department Chair. Dr. Scoville is also the principal investigator of the Cosmic Evolution Survey, also known as Cosmos. The Cosmos program is an astronomical survey designed to investigate the evolution of galaxies as a function of cosmic time and large scale environmental galactic structure. 
 
"The immediate identification of this galaxy with its extraordinary properties would not have been possible without the full range of observations in this survey," said Scoville.