Composite image of the galaxy cluster which helped reveal the newly discovered galaxy – MACS0647-JD. The inset at left shows a close up of the young dwarf galaxy. (NASA)

Scientists have discovered what could be the oldest, most distant galaxy in the universe, thanks to a unique combination of man-made and natural telescopes.

The newly discovered galaxy, MACS0647-JD, was found by the Cluster Lensing And Supernova Survey with Hubble (CLASH).

It is about 13.3 billion light years, or 125,825,000,000,000,000,000,000 km, from Earth. Scientists are getting to see it just as it was 420 million years after the Big Bang, or when the universe was only three percent of its current age of about 13.7 billion years.

Astronomers made the discovery by combining the power of the Hubble Space Telescope, the Spitzer Space Telescope and a natural zoom effect called gravitational lensing, which uses enormous galaxy clusters as interstellar telescopes to magnify distant galaxies behind them.

The effect is achieved when the light rays from the distant object are bent by the gravity of the huge galaxy clusters, just like a giant cosmic lens, that lie between the object and  Earth.

“While one occasionally expects to find an extremely distant galaxy using the tremendous power of gravitational lensing, this latest discovery has outstripped even my expectations of what would be possible with the CLASH program,” said Rychard Bouwens of Leiden University in the Netherlands, a co-author of the study that outlined the discovery. “The science output in this regard has been incredible.”

The massive galaxy cluster that’s making the distant galaxy appear brighter than it normally would, providing the natural boost to the Hubble and Spitzer telescopes, , is called MACS J0647.7+7015 and is about five billion light years away.

Hubble in orbit above the Earth (Photo: NASA)

Because of the gravitational lensing provided by the cluster, the CLASH team was able to observe three magnified images of MACS0647-JD with the Hubble.

“This cluster does what no man-made telescope can do,” said Marc Postman of the Space Telescope Science Institute, who leads the CLASH team. “Without the magnification, it would require a Herculean effort to observe this galaxy.”

The astronomers say that the distant galaxy is so small, about 600 light years across according to their observations that it may be going through its first stages formation. Our own Milky Way galaxy is about 150,000 light years across.

“This object may be one of many building blocks of a galaxy,” says Dan Coe from the Space Telescope Institute and lead author of the study.  “Over the next 13 billion years, it may have dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of merging events with other galaxies and galaxy fragments.”

The galaxy could turn out to be too far away for astronomers to confirm its distance with any of the current available technology.  But once the new James Webb Space Telescope launches in 2018, astronomers expect to be able to take a definitive measurement of its distance and to study the properties of the galaxy in more detail.

MACS0647-JD, is very young and only a tiny fraction of the size of our Milky Way. The object is observed 420 million years after the big bang.   (Video: NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI))

This small portion of a deep space image taken by the Canada-France-Hawaii Telscope Legacy Survey reveals thousands of galaxies yet to be explored. (Image: © CFHT/Coelum/Terapix/AstrOmatic)

Scientists have released the final version of the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Legacy Survey (CFHTLS), data gathered over six years which probes deep recesses of the Universe, including galaxies as far as nine billion light-years away.

This treasure trove of information  will allow scientists to better study dark matter; energy;  new, developing and evolving galaxies; and any solar system bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune, in a region called the Kuiper Belt.

The unique and powerful multi-color collection of astronomical images and data put together by the international team,  was gathered from the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) located atop the summit of Hawaii’s Mauna Kea volcano.

The project is led by French and Canadian astronomers who imaged and mapped an extremely large volume of the Universe using a ground-based, rather than space telescope, such as the Hubble.

The dome of the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) is a world class 3.6-meter telescope that sits above the clouds atop Hawaii’s Mauna Kea, a dormant volcano. (Photo: © J.-C. Cuillandre (CFHT))

“The Legacy Survey has already generated a lot of results and is the most heavily cited work from CFHT,” says Raymond Carlberg of the University of Toronto, who helped with project planning and oversight.

The high-quality images  allowed them to produce a large data bank which includes dark matter maps on the largest scale  ever  observed, according to the researchers.

The data set also contains the first high-quality light measurements which show that dark energy closely resembles the cosmological constant,  which counteracts the gravitational pull of matter, something  Albert Einstein predicted in his General Theory of Relativity and  later thought might have been his greatest mistake.

Although dark matter and dark energy dominate the universe,  they can’t be seen or identified.  However, astronomers are able to measure the effect that dark energy has on the rate of the expansion of our universe.

To help scientists gain a better understanding of dark energy, the Legacy Survey team set out to precisely measure several hundred “Type Ia” supernovae, which they say are excellent standard light measurements for measuring galaxy distances.

At the heart of the Legacy Survey was a state-of-the-art, 340-Megapixel digital camera called MegaCam, that was coupled to the 3.6-meter Canada-France-Hawaii telescope in Hawaii.  More than 15,000 individual MegaCam images were used to produce the survey.

This is image filled with a number of galaxies and other cosmological objects was taken from just a very small fraction of the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Legacy Survey (Image: ©CFHT/Coelum)

Observations began in 2003 and ended in 2009.  The scientists then took three more years to precisely calibrate the huge volume of data gathered from the images.

In the course of their work, project members were able to image and map across a combined area of the heavens which is about 800 times the surface area of the full moon as seen in the sky.

The survey revealed some 38 million celestial objects, which were mostly  distant galaxies in various stages of evolution.

The search for new solar system bodies beyond Neptune’s orbit, in a region called the Kuiper Belt, also proved successful. That area of space contains numerous chunks of material left over from when the solar system formed.

The astronomers  were able to collect what they term “an exceptional sample” of minor bodies in that region.

A new initiative, the Canada-France Ecliptic Plane Survey, has taken over that area of study. With Legacy Survey data, as well from other telescopes, those scientists have so far been able to determine the orbits of nearly 200 Kuiper Belt objects with high-precision. Other astronomers studying the formation of our solar system are also using the Legacy Survey’s information to test various scientific models.

“The legacy  will not be limited to follow-ups of the survey,” says Yannick Mellier, who leads a group of scientists  contributing to the European Space Agency’s Euclid mission – a space telescope with cameras designed to accurately measure dark energy. “MegaCam and the CFHTLS truly paved the way for the Euclid space mission both from the scientific and technical aspects.”

As shown in the above video, the supernova reaches its peak very quickly (a few days) and then slowly fades out over weeks to months. At its peak, a supernova can shine brighter than all the other stars combined in the host galaxy. The animation spans about 4 months, from pre- to post-supernova status. Credit: SNLS

The farthest-ever view of the universe. Hubble’s “extreme Deep Field (XDF) is a composite made from 2,000 images, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope over a 10 year period. (Credit: NASA; ESA; G. Illingworth, D. Magee, and P. Oesch, University of California, Santa Cruz; R. Bouwens, Leiden University; and the HUDF09 Team)

The Hubble Space Telescope has given us  the deepest view of space ever.

Called the eXtreme Deep Field, or XDF, it’s a composite of more than 2,000 photos taken by Hubble over 10 years.

“The XDF is the deepest image of the sky ever obtained and reveals the faintest and most distant galaxies ever seen. XDF allows us to explore further back in time than ever before,” said Garth Illingworth of the University of California at Santa Cruz, principal investigator of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field 2009 (HUDF09) program.

Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys and its Wide Field Camera 3 focused on a tiny spot of the southern sky, which was found in the center of the original Hubble Ultra Deep Field (UDF), a composite created from Hubble Space Telescope data gathered from 2003 and 2004.

While the images that made up the UDF revealed thousands of near and very distant galaxies, the newly released full-color XDF image reaches much fainter galaxies.  NASA scientists say the new XDF also contains about 5,500 galaxies which were taken within a smaller field of view than the UDF.

In creating the XDF,  astronomers were able to use very deep exposures in red light  taken by Hubble’s new infrared camera, which was installed by the Space Shuttle Atlantis in 2009. The data and images taken by the new camera will allow astronomers to study some of the earliest galaxies in the universe. The faintest galaxies in the XDF are one ten-billionth the brightness of what the human eye can see, according to NASA.

This illustration separates the XDF into three planes showing foreground, background, and very far background galaxies. These divisions reflect different epochs in the evolving universe. (Image: NASA, ESA, and Z. Levay, F. Summers (STScI))

The XDF not only provides a unique view of some of the deepest recesses of space but  also serves as a “time tunnel into the distant past.”

The universe is believed to be 13.7 billion years old, and the XDF shows galaxies that go back some 13.2 billion years, less than 500 million years after the Big Bang. The youngest galaxy found in the XDF existed just 450 million years after the birth of the universe.

The XDF will give astronomers the opportunity to view and study those ancient galaxies when they were young, small and growing.

If you would like to learn more about the eXtreme Deep Field, the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), which operates the science program for the Hubble Space Telescope, is inviting the public to an online seminar  Thursday, September 27, at 1700 UTC.

Three  astronomers from the XDF observing team will describe how they assembled the spectacular image and explain what it tells us about the evolving universe.  Participants can send in questions for the panel of experts. To participate, visit hubblesite.org.

This video explains how astronomers meticulously assembled mankind’s deepest view of the universe from combining Hubble Space Telescope exposures taken over the past decade. Guest scientists are Dr. Garth Illingworth and Dr. Marc Postman.  (Video: NASA, ESA, and M. Estacion and G. Bacon (STScI))