Hubble Telescope Photographs Oldest Galaxy

By Michael Rundle:

Cosmic Dawn: Hubble Telescope Photographs Oldest Galaxy Ever Found In The Universe

13/12/2012 08:58 GMT

Astronomers have photographed what could be the most ancient galaxy ever spotted in the universe.

The picture is said to capture the “cosmic dawn” when the first true galaxies formed after the initial creation of the universe.

Images taken with the Hubble Space Telescope have captured galaxies which are thought to have existed just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang.

The galaxy – given the catchy moniker UDFj-39546284 – formed within 380 million years of the universe itself, researchers said.

Six other distant galaxies captured by Hubble existed within 600 million years of the universe’s creation, it is thought. Light from the galaxies has taken more than 13 billion years to reach the Earth.

They were photographed using an infrared camera to study the Hubble Ultra Deep Field between August and September 2012. Astronomers judged their age from the redshift – how much their light has been warped by the expansion of space.

“The cosmic dawn was probably not a single, dramatic event,” study lead author Richard Ellis, of Caltech, told Space.com.

They added that NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, set to launch in 2018, will give an even more detailed look at the universe’s ancient origins.

Mar. 18, 2013 — Galaxies can take many forms — elliptical blobs, swirling spiral arms, bulges, and disks are all known components of the wide range of galaxies we have observed using telescopes like the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. However, some of the more intriguing objects in the sky around us include ring galaxies like the one pictured in a new image — Zw II 28: here.

Related articles

• Hubble Reveals Primitive Galaxies Near Cosmic Dawn (voanews.com)
• Hubble telescope spies seven galaxies from baby years of universe (worldbulletin.net)
• Hubble Space Telescope finds galaxies from the beginning of the universe (al.com)
• Hubble spies galaxies from baby universe (abc.net.au)
• Ancient Galaxy May Be Most Distant Ever Seen (space.com)
• Hubble captures most distant view of space (telegraph.co.uk)
• Hubble telescope spies 7 galaxies from baby years of universe – Daily News & Analysis (dnaindia.com)

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