Hubble's Wide View of the Evolving Universe
This Hubble Space Telescope image represents the largest, most comprehensive "history book" of galaxies in the universe.
The image, a combination of nearly 7,500 separate Hubble exposures, represents 16 years' worth of observations.
The ambitious endeavor, called the Hubble Legacy Field, includes several Hubble deep-field surveys, including the eXtreme Deep Field (XDF), the deepest view of the universe. The wavelength range stretches from ultraviolet to near-infrared light, capturing all the features of galaxy assembly over time.
The image mosaic presents a wide portrait of the distant universe and contains roughly 265,000 galaxies. They stretch back through 13.3 billion years of time to just 500 million years after the universe's birth in the big bang. The tiny, faint, most distant galaxies in the image are similar to the seedling villages from which today's great galaxy star-cities grew. The faintest and farthest galaxies are just one ten-billionth the brightness of what the human eye can see.
The wider view contains about 30 times as many galaxies as in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, taken in 2004. The new portrait, a mosaic of multiple snapshots, covers almost the width of the full Moon. Lying in this region is the XDF, which penetrated deeper into space than this legacy field view. However, the XDF field covers less than one-tenth of the full Moon's diameter.
Credits
NASA, ESA, G. Illingworth and D. Magee (University of California, Santa Cruz), K. Whitaker (University of Connecticut), R. Bouwens (Leiden University), P. Oesch (University of Geneva,) and the Hubble Legacy Field team| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | Hubble Legacy Field |
| Object Description | Hubble's Wide View of the Evolving Universe |
| R.A. Position | 3:32:29 |
| Dec. Position | -27:49:12 |
| Constellation | Fornax |
| Dimensions | Image is about 25 arcmin across |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description | The image was created from public archive Hubble data from the following proposals: , , , , and : A. Riess (STScI/JHU); : M. Giavalsco (University of Massachusetts); , and : J. Rhodes (JPL); : K. Ratnatunga (Carnegie Mellon University); : H. Rix (MPE) : W. Sparks (STScI); , , and : S. Malhotra (Arizona State University); : R. Thompson (University of Arizona) and : S. Beckwith (STScI); : C. Kretchmer (JHU); : M. Stiavelli (STScI); R. Bouwens (Universiteit Leiden); : R. O'Connell (University of Virginia); , and : G. Illingworth (University of California, Santa Cruz); , , and : S. Faber (University of California, Santa Cruz); : P. van Dokkum (Yale University). : R. Ellis (University College London) : H. Teplitz (California Institute of Technology) : M. Swinbank (Durham University) : A. Muzzin (York University) : P. Oesch (Observatoire de Geneve) : E. Vanzella (INAF) The HLF team members include: G. Illingworth and D. Magee (University of California, Santa Cruz), K. Whitaker (University of Connecticut), R. Bouwens (Leiden University), P. Oesch (University of Geneva), P. van Dokkum (Yale University), I. Labbe (Swinburne University), B. Holden (University of California, Santa Cruz), M. Franx (Leiden University), and V. Gonzalez (Universidad de Chile). |
| Instrument | ACS/WFC, WFC3/IR, WFC3/UVIS |
| Filters | WFC3/UV (F225W, F275W, and F336W); ACS (F435W, F606W, F775W, F814W, and F850LP); WFC3/IR (F098M, F105W, F125W, F140W, and F160W) |
| About The Image | |
| Color Info | These images are composites of separate exposures acquired by the ACS and WFC3 instruments on the Hubble Space Telescope. Several filters were used to sample broad and narrow wavelength ranges. The color results from assigning different hues (colors) to each monochromatic (grayscale) image associated with an individual filter. In this case, the assigned colors are: Blue: F606W (Wide V) Green: F606W (Wide V) and F850LP (SDSS z') Red: F850LP (SDSS z') The full Hubble Legacy Field dataset has images from all three of Hubble's cameras — the WFC3/IR and WFC3/UVIS cameras as well as the ACS. More details about the HLF can be found at . |
| 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. |
