The Hubble Ultra Deep Field consists of a rich tapestry of around 10,000 galaxies of all sizes, shapes, and ages.
As with other Hubble Space Telescope deep field images, the telescope was trained on a patch of sky that appears dark and empty in the view of ground-based telescopes. The target was an area in the constellation Fornax.
Captured over the course of 11 days between Sept. 24, 2003 and Jan. 16, 2004, 800 exposures comprise this long view back in space and time.
The smallest, reddest galaxies in this image existed when the universe was just 800 million years old. The nearest galaxies — the larger, brighter, well-defined spirals and ellipticals — thrived about 1 billion years ago when the cosmos was 13 billion years old.
Previous deep field images were taken by Hubble's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2, but this image was captured with Hubble's Advanced Camera For Surveys (ACS), installed on the telescope in 2002. ACS was able to improve on Hubble's previous deep fields with twice the field of view and much more sensitivity.
Credit: NASA, ESA, and S. Beckwith (STScI) and the HUDF Team
For more information, visit:
hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/2004/news-2004-07.html
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