Space Trivia : NASA Telescopes spy ultra-distant galaxy amidst cosmic "Dark Ages"


The Hubble Space Telescope accumulated approximately 555 hours of exposure time to capture this Hubble eXtreme Deep Field image. 



The area shown represents a seemingly empty patch of sky about the width of a toothpick when held at arm's length.
The picture contains only two foreground stars (indicated by surrounding spikes).
Every other object is a galaxy.
The most distant galaxies' light is reddened by the expansion of the universe.
We're seeing light that left them 13.2 billion years ago.

From SPACE.com


With the combined power of NASA's Spitzer and Hubble space telescopes, as well as a cosmic magnification effect, astronomers have spotted what could be the most distant galaxy ever seen. Light from the young galaxy captured by the orbiting observatories first shone when our 13.7-billion-year-old universe was just 500 million years old.

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