Early universe looks like "vegetable soup," "big zoo."

[pmbryant]

At least according to a couple of astronomers quoted in this press release: http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/press/pr0508.html

Very interesting result, though I can't say that I'm surprised that the early universe is a more complicated place than many thought it would be. That does seem to be the pattern with astronomy: whenever we are able to look into a new area of the universe or with a new tool, we discover new and fascinating stuff.

More from the press release:

Cambridge, MA--What did the universe look like when it was only 2 to 3 billion years old? Astronomers used to think it was a pretty simple place containing relatively small, young star-forming galaxies. Researchers now are realizing that the truth is not that simple. Even the early universe was a wildly complex place. Studying the universe at this early stage is important in understanding how the galaxies near us were assembled over time.

Jiasheng Huang (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics) said, "It looks like vegetable soup! We're detecting galaxies we never expected to find, having a wide range of properties we never expected to see."

"It's becoming more and more clear that the young universe was a big zoo with animals of all sorts," said Ivo Labbé (Observatories of the Carnegie Institution of Washington), lead author on the study announcing this result.

Using the Infrared Array Camera (IRAC) aboard NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, the astronomers searched for distant, red galaxies in the Hubble Deep Field South-a region of the southern sky previously observed by the Hubble Space Telescope.

Their search was successful. The IRAC images displayed about a dozen very red galaxies lurking at distances of 10 to 12 billion light-years. Those galaxies existed when the universe was only about 1/5 of its present age of 14 billion years. Analysis showed that the galaxies exhibit a large range of properties.

"Overall, we're seeing young galaxies with lots of dust, young galaxies with no dust, old galaxies with lots of dust, and old galaxies with no dust. There's as much variety in the early universe as we see around us today," said Labbé.

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More: http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/press/pr0508.html

Found via MSNBC's Cosmic Log: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3217961/

--Peter