Credit: NASA, ESA, B. Salmon (STScI)

This is a Hubble Space Telescope image of the farthest galaxy yet seen in an

image that has been stretched and amplified by a phenomenon called

gravitational lensing. The embryonic galaxy, named SPT0615-JD, existed when

the universe was just 500 million years old. Though a few other primitive galaxies

have been seen at this early epoch, they have essentially all looked like red dots,

given their small sizes and tremendous distances. However, in this case, the

gravitational field of a massive foreground galaxy cluster, called SPT-CL J0615-

5746, not only amplified the light from the background galaxy but also smeared

the image of it into an arc (about 2 arcseconds long). Image analysis shows that

the galaxy weighs in at no more than 3 billion solar masses (roughly 1/100th the

mass of our fully grown Milky Way galaxy). It is less than 2,500 light-years across,

half the size of the Small Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of our Milky Way.

The object is considered prototypical of young galaxies that emerged during the

epoch shortly after the big bang.

Provider: Space Telescope Science Institute

Image Source: https://hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/2018/news-2018-02

Curator: STScI, Baltimore, MD, USA

Image Use Policy: http://hubblesite.org/copyright/