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no old stars, so these LAEs are young 

 and newly formed. Furthermore, their 

 rapid rate of star birth means that a 

 substantial number of new stars would 

 appear in them in a very short time. 

 Large galaxies like the Milky Way are 

 hypothesized to have formed from the 

 merging of many small, young galax- 

 ies, and Gawiser's findings lend strong 

 support to that picture. If a dozen 

 LAEs had fallen together between 10 

 and 1 1 billion years ago and merged 

 into a single spinning system, they 

 could readily have formed the bulk of 

 a galaxy like ours. 



As we MUSYC team members do 

 our work — not just on LAEs, but 

 also on the aforementioned AGN and 

 DRGs and so many other fascinating 

 kinds of objects — we're looking for- 

 ward to sharing our scientific sympho- 

 ny with everyone within earshot. Like 

 almost all the large surveys in modern 

 astronomy, the data we obtain will be 

 made available to the general public 

 within a year or two of completion. 

 That way, other investigators can bring 

 their expertise and insights to bear on 

 the data as well. Already MUSYC is 

 rolling off the tongues of astronomers 

 worldwide, along with other cute and 

 clever alphabetic packets such as 

 GOODS, GEMS, and FIRES, all as 

 we explore the mysteries of the 

 COSMOS. Ah, but those are acro- 

 nyms — and stories — for another day. 



Charles Liu is a professor of astrophysics at the 

 City University of New York and an associate 

 unth the American Museum of Natural History. 



PICTURE CREDITS Cover: ©Anup Shah/naturepl.com; pp. 

 4-5: ©Jack Dermid: p. 10: Cartoon by Dolly Setton: p. 12(top 

 left): ©David Kjaer/naturepl.com; p.l2{top right): ©Jean 

 Gaumy/Magnum Photos; p. 12-13: ©John Downer/na- 

 turepl.com; p. !3(top): NASA/GSFC; p. 13(bottom): Andrew 

 Weeks; p. 14(top): Mirjani Knornschild; p. 14(bottoni): 

 ©Bananastock/ Alamy; pp. 17-19): Illustration by Chrlstos 

 Magganas, p. 22: Illustration by Tom Moore; p. 23: Illustration 

 by Flying Chilli Ltd; pp. 28-29, 30. & 34-35: ©Anup cY 

 Manoj Shah; pp. 31, 46, & 52: Maps by Joe LeMonmer; p. 31 

 Icons by Laura Hartman Maestro; p. 33: Mark Deeble & Vic- 

 toria Stone/Oxford Scientific; p. 36: ©Juniors Bildarchiv/ 

 Alamy; p. 38: CRenee Morris/Alamy; pp. 39-4(1: Illustrations 

 by David Barneda; p.41(top left): Robert B. Payne; p. 41 (top 

 right): Michael D. Sorenson; p. 42: Alan Williams/NHPA; pp. 

 44-50: ©Carsten Peter; p. 52(right): Tim Gutmann/ Aurora 

 Photos; p. 52-53: Joel Azel/Aurora Photos; p. 54: ©The 

 Granger Collection; p. 56: ©Gerry Pcarce/Alamy; p. 58: 

 ©CUff LeScrgent/ Alamy; p 61 Illustration by Dolly Setton. p 

 72: Tim Palmer from Rivets of America (Abranis. New York) 



4 



4 



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