Farthest known galaxy in the universe discovered: NASA

NASA scientists have spotted the farthest known galaxy in the universe, a primitive cluster of stars just 500 million years old.

An intensive survey deep into the universe by NASA’s Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes has yielded the image of the galaxy named SPT0615-JD, stretched and amplified by a phenomenon called gravitational lensing.

Hubble is having a busy day at #AAS231! From cosmic lenses to feasting black holes to a busy galactic hub, find all of today’s special releases in one place: https://t.co/E4UkWmp8dd pic.twitter.com/pE9jsLSj8C

— Hubble (@NASAHubble) January 11, 2018

Though a few other primitive galaxies have been seen at this early epoch, they have essentially all looked like red dots given their small size and tremendous distances.

However, in this case, the gravitational field of a massive foreground galaxy cluster not only amplified the light from the background galaxy but also smeared the image of it into an arc.

“No other candidate galaxy has been found at such a great distance that also gives you the spatial information that this arc image does,” said Brett Salmon of the Space Telescope Science Institute in the US.

“By analysing the effects of gravitational lensing on the image …read more