Teaching tools > Science content reading > Overview: Finding a young galaxy > Tales of: Finding a young galaxy

Tales of ... Finding one of the brightest and youngest galaxies in the early universe See image below

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, with a boost from a natural "zoom lens," has uncovered what may be one of the youngest and brightest galaxies ever seen in the middle of the cosmic "dark ages," just 700 million years after the beginning of our universe.

The detailed images from Hubble's Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS) reveal an infant galaxy, dubbed A1689-zD1, undergoing a firestorm of star birth during the dark ages, a time shortly after the Big Bang but before the first stars reheated the cold, dark universe. Images from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope's Infrared Array Camera provided strong additional evidence that it was a young star-forming galaxy in the dark ages.

"We certainly were surprised to find such a bright young galaxy 12.8 billion years in the past,” said astronomer Garth Illingworth of the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a member of the research team. “This is the most detailed look to date at an object so far back in time." (Continued >>)

Image shows Abell 1689 (at left), a massive galaxy cluster, and the bright young galaxy discovered behind it. Two images at right show the newly discovered galaxy enlarged, in infrared light.

Teaching tools > Science content reading > Overview: Finding a young galaxy > Tales of: Finding a young galaxy