NASA locates most distant galaxy ever discovered
Baku, November 16 (AZERTAC). Light from the newly discovered galaxy, which astronomers have named MACS0647-JD, reached Earth after travelling across space for 13.3 billion years.
It provides a window on what the galaxy looked like just 420 million years after the big bang, when the universe was only three per cent of its current age.
The galaxy was detected using an effect known as gravitational lensing, where large clusters of galaxies are used as "natural zoom lenses" to enlarge the appearance of galaxies behind them.
Astronomers were able to detect a hint of light from MACS0647-JD because it was magnified as it passed around an enormous galaxy cluster known as MACS J0647+7015 as it travelled towards Earth.
Thanks to the gravitational force of the cluster, the Hubble telescope was able to detect the light at up to eight times the brightness it otherwise would.
Marc Postman, who led the research team, explained: "This cluster does what no man-made telescope can do. Without the magnification, it would require a Herculean effort to observe this galaxy."
The galaxy appeared as a small blob much smaller than our Milky Way, suggesting it may have been glimpsed as it was in the early stages of the formation of a larger galaxy.
Images suggested MACS0647-JD was only 600 light-years wide, but a typical galaxy of a similar age ought to be more than three times this width. The Milky Way measures 150,000 light-years across.
Researchers from the Space Telescope Science Institute will publish their findings in The Astrophysical Journal next month.
Dan Coe, lead author of the paper, 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."
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