Hubble Telescope

Hubble Telescope spots a galaxy far, far away that smashes cosmic distance record.

20:19 06 March 2016

Hubble Telescope has spotted a galaxy that is 13.4 billion years away – the most distant and oldest object known in the universe, shattering cosmic distance record set by astronomers. Astronomers measured the distance to the galaxy, known as GN-z11, by splitting its light up into its component colours.

 

Dr Pascal Oesch, a member of the team from Yale University in the US, said: "We've taken a major step back in time, beyond what we'd ever expected to be able to do with Hubble," said Dr Pascal Oesch, a member of the team from Yale University in the US.

 

"We managed to look back in time to measure the distance to a galaxy when the universe was only 3% of its current age."

 

Co-author Dr Ivo Labbe, from the University of Leiden in the Netherlands, added: "The discovery of GN-z11 showed us that our knowledge about the early universe is still very restricted," said co-author Dr Ivo Labbe, from the University of Leiden in the Netherlands.

 

"How GN-z11 was created remains somewhat of a mystery for now. Probably we are seeing the first generations of stars forming around black holes."