NASA may have spotted one of the most distant galaxies to date. Using the Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes, astronomers have discovered a galaxy that existed at a time when our universe was a mere 650 million years old. The new galaxy could pave the way for new findings about our early universe.
The galaxy is known as Abell2744 Y1. It's about 30 times smaller than our Milky Way and possesses about 10 times more stars, churning out brilliant bodies as a type of star factory. It has a redshift of 8, which is a measure of the degree to which its light has been shifted to redder wavelengths due to the expansion of our universe. For example, the farther a galaxy, the higher its redshift. The furthest confirmed galaxy actually has a redshift of more than 7, while other candidates have redshifts as high as 11.
"Just a handful of galaxies at these great distances are known," said Jason Surace, one of the researchers, in a news release. "The Frontier Fields program is already working to find more of these distant, faint galaxies. This is a preview of what's to come."
What is the Frontier Fields program? It's a new initiative created to push the limits of how far back we can see into the distant universe. The program is currently using NASA's multi-wavelength suite of Great Observatories.
In fact, the latest galaxy is just a preliminary finding from this program. The Frontier Fields program will image six galaxy clusters in the end. Hubble images will be used to spot candidates, and then Spitzer will be used to determine if the galaxies are as far away as they seem. In addition, Spitzer data will be used to determine exactly how many stars are in each galaxy.
The findings are published in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics Letters.
