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Credit & Copyright: NASA,
ESA,
G. Illingworth,
D. Magee, and P. Oesch
(UCSC), R. Bouwens
(Leiden Obs.), and the
XDF Team
Explanation:
What did the first galaxies look like?
To help answer this question, the Hubble Space Telescope has just finished taking
the
eXtreme Deep Field (XDF), the deepest image of the universe ever taken in
visible light.
Pictured above, the XDF shows a sampling of some of the
oldest galaxies ever seen,
galaxies that formed just after the
dark ages, 13 billion years ago, when the universe was
only a few percent of its present age.
The Hubble Space Telescope's
ACS camera and the infrared channel
of the WFPC3 camera took
the image.
Combining efforts spread over 10 years, the
XDF is more sensitive, in some colors,
than the original Hubble Deep Field (HDF), the
Hubble Ultra Deep Field (HUDF) completed in 2004, and
the
HUDF Infrared completed in 2009.
Astronomers the world over will likely study the
XDF for years to come to
better understand how stars and galaxies formed in the early universe.
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NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings, and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
Based on Astronomy Picture
Of the Day
Publications with keywords: Hubble Deep Field
Publications with words: Hubble Deep Field
See also: