This beautiful Hubble Space Telescope picture is a collection of observations taken between 2002 and 2012. Dubbed the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, the picture contains an incredibly detailed slice of the observable universe. The image was built upon the initial Hubble Deep Field observation and the following Hubble eXtreme Deep Field. In the Hubble picture, the space telescope snapped a mix of old galaxies, newborn stars and stellar objects both near and far.
How many stars are there in the Hubble Deep Field view?
The newest addition to the Hubble legacy, the Ultra Deep Field combines 10 years worth of astronomical observations.
The image has looked back at approximately 13.2 billion years of cosmic history, placing it within a few hundred million years of the Big Bang.
The image contains an approximate 10,000 galaxies, each packed with around 100 million stars of their own.
Hubble’s snapshot represents a region of space in the constellation Fornax.
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Despite the high number of stellar objects contained within this single image, NASA has called it a “minuscule patch of sky”.
The US space agency said: “This tiny slice of the universe, speckled with galaxies near and far, tells the story of galaxy evolution over cosmic time.
“Among the 10,000 or so galaxies pictured here are newborns, adolescents, adults, and retirees.
“Like looking through a vast collection of family photos, astronomers are poring over this comprehensive image to see how galaxies grew up, matured, and aged.”
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To look back at the history of the universe, scientists need to scan the skies in infrared wavelengths.
As the cosmos infinitely expands, the space tween stellar objects continues to grow.
As a result, wavelengths of light are stretched and shifted towards the red end of the spectrum.
NASA said: “Combining Hubble’s observations of the HUDF in visible and infrared light, a team of astronomers led by Garth Illingworth of the University of California identified more than 5,500 galaxies in a central portion of the field, some so faint that they are just one ten-billionth the brightness of what the human eye can see.
“Another team, headed by Richard Ellis of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), used Hubble’s infrared observations to find galaxies more than 13 billion light-years away, when the universe was only about 400 million years old — or about three percent of its present age.”
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Slightly older galaxies, however, are best seen when viewed in ultraviolet light.
The same rule is applied to younger and hotter stars that glow with intense ultraviolet radiation.
None of these are visible to the naked eye but observatories like the Hubble can peel back the mysteries of the cosmos.
NASA said: “Because our atmosphere blocks or absorbs most infrared and ultraviolet light that reaches Earth, only a telescope in space, like Hubble, can provide such insights into the history of galaxies.
“Without both infrared and ultraviolet light, the tale is incomplete.”