Editor's Summary
9 April 2009
BLAST from the past
Submillimetre galaxies at redshifts of 1 ≤ z ≤ 4 are thought to be precursors of the giant elliptical galaxies in the present-day Universe, as they are the only known objects with sufficiently massive star formation rates. A new extra-galactic survey from the Balloon-borne Large Aperture Submillimetre Telescope (BLAST) team, at 250, 350 and 500 
m has resulted in a 20-fold increase in the total number of galaxies observed in this wavelength range. The survey shows that the entire far infrared background derives from individual galaxies, with 70% of it from galaxies at z ≥ 1.2. These exploits are the subject of the documentary BLAST! (http://www.blastthemovie.com), being screened around the world as part of the International Year of Astronomy 2009 programme.
News and Views: Astrophysics: Hidden Universe uncovered
An experiment flying on a balloon at the edge of the atmosphere offers the deepest far-infrared view of the sky yet achieved, revealing previously unidentified, dust-obscured, star-forming galaxies in the early Universe.
Ian Smail
doi:10.1038/458710a
Letter: Over half of the far-infrared background light comes from galaxies at z 
1.2
Mark J. Devlin, Peter A. R. Ade, Itziar Aretxaga, James J. Bock, Edward L. Chapin, Matthew Griffin, Joshua O. Gundersen, Mark Halpern, Peter C. Hargrave, David H. Hughes, Jeff Klein, Gaelen Marsden, Peter G. Martin, Philip Mauskopf, Lorenzo Moncelsi, Calvin B. Netterfield, Henry Ngo, Luca Olmi, Enzo Pascale, Guillaume Patanchon, Marie Rex, Douglas Scott, Christopher Semisch, Nicholas Thomas, Matthew D. P. Truch, Carole Tucker, Gregory S. Tucker, Marco P. Viero & Donald V. Wiebe
doi:10.1038/nature07918
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (1,544K) | Supplementary information
