An image of the discovered galaxy
Click on image for full size
NASA
A Long Time Ago in A Galaxy Far, Far Away...
News story originally written on August 1, 1997
A NASA Hubble Space Telescope image revealed the most distant galaxy found in the universe to date. The image the telescope took was of a galaxy cluster located 5 billion light years away. The discovered galaxy is located behind the galaxy cluster 13 billion years away.
The galaxy cluster is called a gravitational lens . It acted as a magnifying glass for scientists to look through. Looking through the galaxy cluster caused the discovered galaxy's image to be brighter and bigger than it would have appeared otherwise.
The newly discovered galaxy is very far away! Measurements show that it is the farthest galaxy ever seen at a distance of 13 billion light-years away. So the light that is reaching us now is actually 13 billion years old. That is how long the light took to travel to Earth.
So what we see occurring in the galaxy actually occurred 13 billion years ago, or a LONG time ago. Scientists hope that this will add to our knowledge of galaxy formation and stars within these galaxies.
The image was taken with Hubble's Wide Field Planetary Camera-2 on January 13, 1996. Many more exciting discoveries are expected from the orbiting telescope.
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