The Most Distant Galaxy Has Been Discovered

Photo credit: NASA/ESA/STScI/IAC There have been great strides recently in determining the origins of stars in the Universe. Combined data from the Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes has revealed the furthest known galaxy to date and was believed to have formed about 13.2 billion years ago when the Universe was still quite young. The research was led by Nicola Laporte from Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias in Spain and has been accepted for publication by Astronomy and Astrophysics Letters.

The galaxy, dubbed Abell2744 Y1, was spotted by scientists working on NASA’s Frontier Fields program. This program combines the data from Hubble and Spitzer to peer back to the earliest galaxies in the Universe. Frontier Fields is currently examining six galaxy clusters, chosen for a variety of factors including luminosity and lensing ability. Gravitational lensing occurs when distant light is magnified by galaxies and galaxy clusters. Though it is highly distorted, the astronomers can correct the signal and produce a good image. Once Hubble detects the faint visible light a candidate galaxy, Spitzer is used to verify the findings by analyzing the infrared light.

Abbell2744, which was seen when the Universe was a mere 650 million years old, is about thirty times smaller than the Milky Way though it likely had 10 times more stars. This is believed to be typical of the earliest galaxies, as the earliest stars lived fast and died young.

The galaxy’s distance is denoted by its redshift, which occurs when the wavelengths from the radiation are stretched due to the accelerating expansion of the Universe. As the source of light gets further away from the observer, the radiation appears to have a longer wavelength and appears more

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