This Is the Most Distant Galaxy Ever Spotted



Approximately 13.8 billion years ago, the big bang happened, and it wasn't long afterward that the universe settled down enough for matter to begin massing together. Just 400 to 600 million years after the big bang, the newly discovered galaxy EGS-zs8-1 formed.

To date, it's the oldest galaxy found, and it may have been born at about the earliest point galaxies could have formed, known as the Epoch of Reionization. Thus, we might be staring at one of the earliest galaxies we'll ever find. And we found it through the Hubble Space Telescope.

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

The galaxy is just 100 million years old in this picture. (Remember, relativity essentially makes the sky somewhere between a time capsule and a time machine, so spotting an object 13.4 billion light years away means we're seeing it as it appeared that many years ago.) The stars seen here are almost uniformly young, and the galactic shape and composition is unlike anything we see today. It's still forming in a still hot, relatively new universe when fusion had just become possible and hydrogen was (almost) the only game in town.

It was a vastly different time, and one we're just now getting the chance to glimpse.

Source: CBS News

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below
More From Space