ESA Science & Technology - The First Galaxies, Quasars & Gamma-Ray Bursts

Start date: 07 Jun 2010
Address: The Atherton Hotel, State College, Pennsylvania, United States

The first generation of galaxies, quasars and GRBs is an exciting new field, and a major science goal of all the upcoming missions (e.g., ALMA, JWST ...). Over the past few years, there has been rapid progress in both observational and theoretical cosmologies. To date, hundreds of star-forming galaxies, dozens of luminous quasars and gamma ray bursts have been discovered at the cosmic dawn, including the most distant GRB detected at redshift z=8.2. However, many fundamental questions remain open, such as the nature of these objects, their formation and evolution, and their impacts on the ISM/IGM and structure formation at later time.