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Hubble Telescope Finds an Undiscovered Galaxy

The Hubble Space Telescope Celebrated Its 20th Year of Taking Snapshots of the Universe

NASA astronomers announced on Wednesday, Jan. 26, the Hubble space telescope has spotted a new and undiscovered galaxy 13.2 billion light years from Earth. This being a new record for the galaxy furthest from Earth makes it a landmark in the exploration of the universe and on how time exists. The Hubble Space Telescope celebrated its 20th year of taking snapshots of the universe and it continues to amaze. NASA this year said it was looking to crowd source new galaxy images and promote social network celebrations as quickly as the announcements had been made.

Both the Hubble Space Telescope and the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT) team spotted the faint glow of a galaxy 13.1 billion light years from our own. The galaxy, named UDFy-38135539, includes about a billion stars. The Hubble Space Telescope was able to spot a galaxy whose light traveled 13.2 billion years to reach Hubble, about 150 million years longer than the previous record holder.

According to the Hubble website:

"The existence of these newly found galaxies pushes back the time when galaxies began to form to before 500-600 million years after the Big Bang. These newly found objects are crucial to understanding the evolutionary link between the birth of the first stars, the formation of the first galaxies and the sequence of evolutionary events that resulted in the assembly of our Milky Way and the other 'mature' elliptical and majestic spiral galaxies in today's Universe."

The new research offers surprising evidence that the rate of star birth in the early universe grew dramatically, increasing by about a factor of 10 from 480 million years to 650 million years after the big bang. All of this has the potential to revolutionize scientific research in any of the areas I may have been skilled in, or they may need me after all of these years. Weird and fascinating at the same time this discovery is.

According to NASA the tiny, dim object is a compact galaxy of blue stars that existed 480 million years after the big bang. More than 100 such mini-galaxies would have been necessary in dimensions to make up our Milky Way. Other statements to clarify were released during a press conference where they expected us to be alone or not check our neighbors.

"This is an astonishing increase in such a short period, happening in just 1% of the age of the universe. We are thrilled to have discovered this galaxy, but we're equally surprised to have found only one. This tells us that the universe was changing very rapidly in early times," said Ivo Labbe of the Carnegie Observatories and author of a new paper on the new galaxy discovery.

The galaxy is far enough out that it still is only observable at wave lengths of infrared or anything like that. More details should become available soon. NASA and the federal government for once are in a relatively close.

In that, Hubble Telescope and its new discovered galaxy, have just made a wide expansion in the realm of knowledge for all of human history to come. Space exploration as we know it, has been changed forever.