NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has made the deepest image of the universe ever taken in near-infrared light. The faintest and reddest objects in the image are galaxies that formed 600 million years after the Big Bang. No galaxies have been seen before at such early times. The new deep view also provides insights into how galaxies grew in their formative years early in the universe's history.
The image was taken in the same region as the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (HUDF), which was taken in 2004 and is the deepest visible-light image of the universe. Hubble's newly installed Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) collects light from near-infrared wavelengths and therefore looks even deeper into the universe because the light from very distant galaxies is stretched out of the ultraviolet and visible regions of the spectrum into near-infrared wavelengths by the expansion of the universe.
Biden referred to the telescope as a “new window into the history of our universe,” adding that Monday’s image was a glimpse of the first light to shine through it.
“Light where stars were born, and from where they die. Light from the oldest galaxies — the oldest documented light in the history of the universe — from over [13 billion years ago.] It’s hard to even fathom,” the president added, referring to the full suite of inaugural images from Webb to be rolled out on Tuesday.
Having taken more than three decades to create and launch, the telescope is designed to observe some of the oldest objects in the universe, as well as many that are less ancient and in closer proximity to Earth.