A Possible Forest of Emission Lines from Proto-galaxies

The possibility of detecting proto-galaxies in the UV band is pointed out, assuming that galaxy formation occured at z $\sim 5-6$. It is shown that the diffuse gas in collapsing galaxy sized objects with temperatures $\sim 10^{6\pm0.5}$ K, and with a modest amount of metallicity, should copiously produce emission lines from highly ionized Iron atoms. The expected luminosity from models of galaxy formation is compared with the sensitivity of HST.