HUBBLE ATLAS
Rate of Star Birth in the Early Universe — image from the Hubble Space Telescope

Deep fields & lensing

Rate of Star Birth in the Early Universe

January 26, 2011 · NASA

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The new Hubble Space Telescope results show that the rate of star birth changed dramatically in the universe over just 170 million years, increasing by ten times from 480 million years after the Big Bang to 650 million years, and doubling again in the next 130 million years. The astonishing 10 times increase in star birth happened in a period that is just 1 percent of the current age of the universe. This is shown schematically in this figure that shows the new galaxy at 480 million years and comparable galaxies from the epoch at 650 million years and at 780 million years after the Big Bang to represent the relative amounts of star birth in galaxies at different times.