About this image

This is an artist's impression of an embryonic galaxy brimming with star birth in the early universe, less than a billion years after the Big Bang. The galaxy is still forming and looks nothing like the majestic spiral and elliptical galaxies that are neighbors of our Milky Way Galaxy.

The illustration shows several tight clusters of stars bursting to life. They are surrounded by glowing bubbles of hydrogen gas produced by massive stars erupting as supernovae. A tapestry of young, developing galaxies is in the background.

The Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes discovered a young star-forming galaxy like the one in this illustration. The galaxy spied by Hubble and Spitzer was born just 700 million years after the Big Bang.

Artwork, Exotic, Galaxies, Galaxy Clusters, Gravitational Lensing, Hubble Telescope


Credit: NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (Space Telescope Science Institute)