Abell 1835 IR1916

Abell 1835 IR1916
The galaxy cluster Abell 1835 behind which the galaxy Abell 1835 IR1916 was discovered
Observation data (J2000 epoch)
Constellation	Virgo
Right ascension	14h 01m
Declination	+02° 51′
Redshift	10.0
Distance	13.2 Gly (4.04 Gpc)
See also: Galaxy, List of galaxies

Abell 1835 IR1916 (also known as Abell 1835, Galaxy Abell 1835, or Galaxy Abell 1835 IR1916) was a candidate for being the most distant galaxy ever observed. It was claimed to lie behind the galaxy cluster Abell 1835, in the Virgo constellation. It was discovered by French and Swiss astronomers of the European Southern Observatory, namely Roser Pelló, Johan Richard, Jean-François Le Borgne, Daniel Schaerer, and Jean-Paul Kneib. The astronomers used a near-infrared instrument on the Very Large Telescope to detect the galaxy; other observatories were then used to make an image of it possible. The Observatory, in conjunction with the Swiss National Science Foundation, the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, and the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics, issued a press release on 1 March 2004 announcing the discovery. It was believed to be more distant than the galaxy lensed by Abell 2218.

Their analysis of J-band observations indicated that Abell 1835 IR1916 has a redshift factor of z~10.0, meaning that, according to the Big Bang Theory, it appears to us as it was about 13.2 billion years ago, only 500 million years after the Big Bang and very close to the first burst of star formation in the universe. This redshift also implies a comoving distance from the earth of about 31 billion light years. Its visibility at such a great distance was credited to gravitational lensing by the galaxy cluster Abell 1835 between it and us.

Failure to replicate observations

However, further analysis by Weatherley, Warren and Babbedge (2004) of the data that led to the first announcement has cast doubt on the claim that it is a distant object, and follow-up observations in the H-band using the Gemini North Telescope (Bremer et al. 2004) and observations from the orbiting Spitzer Space Telescope (Smith et al. 2006) were not able to detect it at all, the latter regarding it to be an artefact [1]

See also

• Abell 370
• IOK-1

References

• "Astronomy & Astrophysics" (A&A, volume 416, page L35; "ISAAC/VLT observations of a lensed galaxy at z=10.0" by Roser Pelló, Daniel Schaerer, Johan Richard, Jean-François Le Borgne, and Jean-Paul Kneib)

• "Astronomy & Astrophysics" (A&A, volume 428 page L29-L32; Reanalysis of the spectrum of the z = 10 galaxy by Weatherley, S. J.; Warren, S. J.; Babbedge, T. S. R.

• "Astroph" (astroph,0407194; Response to "Reanalysis of the spectrum of the z=10 galaxy by Roser Pelló; Johan Richard; Daniel Schaerer; Jean-François Le Borgne

• "The Astrophysical Journal" (ApJ, Volume 615, Issue 1, pp. L1-L4; Gemini H-Band Imaging of the Field of a z = 10 Candidate by Bremer, M. N.; Jensen, Joseph B.; Lehnert, M. D.; Schreiber, N. M. Förster; Douglas, Laura)

• Astrophys. J. 636, 575–581 (2006), Smith et al. arΧiv:astro-ph/0601181

Notes

Coordinates: 14^h 01^m 00^s, +02° 51′ 00″

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