Astronomers reveal the oldest galaxy ever pictured - an astonishing 13.3 BILLION light-years from Earth

Galaxy was observed 420 million years after the Big Bang

found by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, Spitzer Space Telescope, and one of nature’s own natural 'zoom lenses' in space.

Researcher have identified the furthest ever galaxy discovered in space - a staggering 13.3 billion light-years from Earth.

The galaxy was observed around 420 million years after the Big Bang when the universe was just 3 per cent of its current age.

Astronomers have calculated the galaxy is a 13.3 billion light-years from Earth with a single light-year representing 5,878,625 million miles.

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The newly discovered galaxy, named MACS0647-JD, is very young and only a tiny fraction of the size of our Milky Way. The object was observed 420 million years after the big bang

WHAT IS IT?

The object is so small it may be in the first stages of galaxy formation, with analysis showing the galaxy is less than 600 light-years across. For comparison the Milky Way is 150 000 light-years across.

The estimated mass of this baby galaxy is roughly equal to 100 million or a billion suns, or 0.1 - 1 percent the mass of our Milky Way’s stars.



It was spotted using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, Spitzer Space Telescope, and one of nature’s own natural 'zoom lenses' in space.

Scientists say the object is in the first stages of galaxy formation with analysis showing it is less than 600 light-years across.

Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is 150,000 light-years across with the Solar System a third of the age of the newly discovered galaxy.

Dan Coe, from the Space Telescope Science Institute, said. 'This object may be one of many building blocks of a galaxy.

'Over the next 13 billion years, it may have dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of merging events with other galaxies and galaxy fragments.'

Galaxy Cluster MACS J0647, where the latest galaxy was spotted

Coe and his collaborators spent months ruling out alternative explanations for the object’s identity - such as red stars, brown dwarfs, and red galaxies - to conclude it was a very distant galaxy.

The object, named MACS0647-JD, is the latest discovery from a programme which uses natural zoom lenses to reveal distant galaxies in the early universe.

The Cluster Lensing And Supernova survey with Hubble (CLASH) is using massive galaxy clusters as cosmic telescopes to magnify distant galaxies behind them, an effect called gravitational lensing.