astronomicalwonders:The Hubble Extreme Deep Field XDF In this image each point of light is not a s
astronomicalwonders: The Hubble Extreme Deep Field XDF In this image each point of light is not a star, instead it represents a galaxy each containing billions of stars. Some points do not even represent a galaxy, but rather a cluster of galaxies with billions and billions of stars. Each point of light is not one point but billions an billions of points so far away that they appear as one point to us. “The Hubble Extreme Deep Field is an image of a small area of space in the constellation Fornax, created using Hubble Space Telescope data from 2003 and 2004. By collecting faint light over many hours of observation, it revealed thousands of galaxies, both nearby and very distant, making it the deepest image of the universe ever taken at that time. The universe is 13.7 billion years old, and the XDF reveals galaxies that span back 13.2 billion years in time.” In this image we are able to look back in time at our origins and wonder about how such complexity was able to form. Credit: NASA, ESA, G. Illingworth, D. Magee, and P. Oesch (University of California, Santa Cruz), R. Bouwens (Leiden University), and the HUDF09 Team -- source link
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