The farthest and one of the very earliest galaxies ever seen in the universe appears as a faint red blob in this ultra-deep-field exposure taken with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. This is the deepest infrared image taken of the universe. Based on the object's color, astronomers believe it is 13.2 billion light-years away.
The most distant objects in the universe appear extremely red because their light is stretched to longer, redder wavelengths by the expansion of the universe. This object is at an extremely faint magnitude of 29, which is 500 million times fainter that the faintest stars seen by the human eye.
The dim object is a compact galaxy of blue stars that existed 480 million years after the Big Bang, only four percent of the universe's current age. It is tiny and considered a building block of today's giant galaxies. Over one hundred such mini-galaxies would be needed to make up our Milky Way galaxy.
Follow-up spectroscopic observations with the planned James Webb Space Telescope later in this decade will be needed to definitively confirm the object's distance.
The Hubble Ultra Deep Field infrared exposures were taken in 2009 and 2010, and required a total of 111 orbits or 8 days of observing. The new Wide Field Camera 3 has the sharpness and near-infrared light sensitivity that matches the Advanced Camera for Surveys' optical images and allows for such a faint object to be selected from the thousands of other galaxies in the incredibly deep images of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field.
Credits
NASA, ESA, G. Illingworth (University of California, Santa Cruz), R. Bouwens (University of California, Santa Cruz, and Leiden University), and the HUDF09 Team| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | Hubble Ultra Deep Field, HUDF, and UDFj-39546284 |
| Object Description | Cosmological Survey and distant galaxy |
| R.A. Position | 03h 32m 38.99s |
| Dec. Position | -27° 47' 29.04" |
| Constellation | Fornax |
| Dimensions | The HUDF image is roughly 2.2 arcminutes wide. |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description | The image was created from Hubble data from proposal : G. Illingworth (University of California, Santa Cruz), R. Bouwens (University of California, Santa Cruz, and Leiden University), M. Carollo (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich), M. Franx (Leiden University), I. Labbé (Carnegie Institution of Washington), D. Magee (University of California, Santa Cruz), P. Oesch (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich), M. Stiavelli (STScI), M. Trenti (University of Colorado, Boulder), and P. van Dokkum (Yale University). The science team includes: R. Bouwens (University of California, Santa Cruz, and Leiden University), G. Illingworth (University of California, Santa Cruz), I. Labbé (Carnegie Institution of Washington), P. Oesch (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich), M. Trenti (University of Colorado, Boulder), M. Carollo (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich), P. van Dokkum (Yale University), M. Franx (Leiden University), M. Stiavelli (STScI), V. González and D. Magee (University of California, Santa Cruz), and L. Bradley (STScI). |
| Instrument | HST>WFC3/IR |
| Exposure Dates | August 26, 2009 - September 14, 2010, Exposure Time: 87 hours |
| Filters | F105W (Y), F125W (J), and F160W (H) |
| About The Image | |
| Color Info | The image is a composite of separate exposures made by the WFC3 instrument on the Hubble Space Telescope. Three filters were used to sample broad wavelength ranges in the near infrared. The color results from assigning different hues (colors) to each monochromatic image. In this case, the assigned colors are: Blue: F105W (Y) Green: F125W (J) Red: F160W (H) |
| Compass Image |  |
| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | A name or catalog number that astronomers use to identify an astronomical object. |
| Object Description | The type of astronomical object. |
| R.A. Position | Right ascension – analogous to longitude – is one component of an object's position. |
| Dec. Position | Declination – analogous to latitude – is one component of an object's position. |
| Constellation | One of 88 recognized regions of the celestial sphere in which the object appears. |
| Distance | The physical distance from Earth to the astronomical object. Distances within our solar system are usually measured in Astronomical Units (AU). Distances between stars are usually measured in light-years. Interstellar distances can also be measured in parsecs. |
| Dimensions | The physical size of the object or the apparent angle it subtends on the sky. |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description |
|
| Instrument | The science instrument used to produce the data. |
| Exposure Dates | The date(s) that the telescope made its observations and the total exposure time. |
| Filters | The camera filters that were used in the science observations. |
| About The Image | |
| Image Credit | The primary individuals and institutions responsible for the content. |
| Publication Date | The date and time the release content became public. |
| Color Info | A brief description of the methods used to convert telescope data into the color image being presented. |
| Orientation | The rotation of the image on the sky with respect to the north pole of the celestial sphere. |
