Space & Astronomy

Hubble image smashes cosmic distance record

By T.K. Randall
March 4, 2016

Image: Artist's Impression of the Hubble Space Telescope
Credit: Hubble ESA / CC BY 2.0 (adapted) Known as GN-z11, this far off galaxy is situated at a distance of 13.4 billion light years away from us meaning that the light we see from it began its journey through the cosmos a mere 400 million years after the birth of the universe.

Its discovery, which has broken all previous cosmic distance records, has given astronomers a unique glimpse further back in time than was ever thought possible with the Hubble Telescope.Scientists believe that GN-z11 is around 25 times smaller than the Milky Way but is spinning much faster and is spawning new stars at a much faster rate than our own galaxy.

"We've taken a major step back in time, beyond what we'd ever expected to be able to do with Hubble," said Yale University's Dr Pascal Oesch. "We managed to look back in time to measure the distance to a galaxy when the universe was only 3% of its current age."

Source: Telegraph

Tags: Hubble, Galaxy