Space & Astronomy
Hubble image smashes cosmic distance record
By
T.K. RandallMarch 4, 2016 ·
19 comments
NASA image showing a zoomed in view of galaxy GN-z11. Image Credit: NASA
The Hubble Space Telescope has managed to take a photograph of the most distant object ever observed.
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 |
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Tags:
Hubble, Galaxy
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