Individual Galaxy Details

Astronomers analyzing two of the deepest views of the cosmos made with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have uncovered a gold mine of galaxies, more than 500 that existed less than a billion years after the Big Bang. These galaxies thrived when the cosmos was less than 7 percent of its present age of 13.7 billion years. This sample, of which 28 are seen here, represents the most comprehensive compilation of galaxies in the early universe. The galaxies appear red because of their tremendous distance from Earth. The blue light from their young stars took nearly 13 billion years to arrive at Earth. During the journey, the blue light was shifted to red light due to the expansion of space.

About the colours

Blue: F435W (B) Green: F606W (V) + F775W (i) Red: F850LP (z)

About the data

The science team for this release is: R. Bouwens and G. Illingworth (University of California, Santa Cruz), J. Blakeslee (Washington State University), and M. Franx (Leiden Observatory).

This image was created from HST data from the following proposal: 9978 : HUDF Team (STScI).

The science teams are: • A.J. Bunker (Univ.of Exeter U.K./ Inst. of Astrophysics, Univ. of Cambridge, U.K.), E.R. Stanway (Inst. of Astrophysics, Univ. of Cambridge, U.K.), R.S. Ellis (California Inst. of Tech.), and R.G. McMahon (Inst. of Astrophysics, Univ. of Cambridge, U.K.) • H. Yan (Spitzer Science Center, California Inst. of Tech.) and R.A. Windhorst (Arizona State Univ.) • M. Stiavelli, S.M. Fall, and N. Panagia (STScI) • R.J. Bouwens and G.D. Illingworth (Univ. of California, Santa Cruz), R.I. Thompson (Steward Obs./Univ. of Arizona), J.P. Blakeslee (Johns Hopkins Univ.), M.E. Dickinson (National Optical Astronomy Obs.), T.J. Broadhurst (The Hebrew Univ., Israel), D.J. Eisenstein and X. Fan (Steward Obs./Univ. of Arizona), M. Franx (Leiden Observatory, Netherlands), G. Meurer (Johns Hopkins Univ.), and P. van Dokkum (Yale Univ.) • S. Malhotra, J.E. Rhoads, N. Pirzkal and C. Xu (Space Telescope Science Inst.)