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Galaxies galore in Hubble's latest pic

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Galaxies galore in Hubble's latest pic

3News NZ

The 'eXtreme Deep Field' image contains 5,500 galaxies (NASA)

The 'eXtreme Deep Field' image contains 5,500 galaxies (NASA)

By 3 News online staff

A new image from the Hubble Space Telescope is being hailed as the deepest and most detailed view of the night sky ever taken.

NASA has called it the "eXtreme Deep Field" (XDF), and says it is an upgrade of 2004's "Ultra-Deep Field" (UDF) image, which contained 10,000 galaxies.

The UDF image covered a section of sky one-tenth the width of the moon as viewed from Earth; the XDF image covers only a small part of space in the centre of the UDF image, bringing to light another 5,500 galaxies.

Some of them are 13.2 billion years old, formed less than 500 million years after the Big Bang, and are so far away they would only be visible from Earth if they were 10 billion times brighter.

"The XDF is the deepest image of the sky ever obtained and reveals the faintest and most distant galaxies ever seen," says Garth Illingworth of the University of California.

"XDF allows us to explore further back in time than ever before."

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Comments

27/09/2012 1:54:07 p.m.

Chris wrote:

AJ, close up photos of the moon landing sites have already been taken. While they are quite small you can clearly make out the landing sites. Here is a link http://www.space.com/12835-nasa-apollo-moon-landing-sites-photos-lro.html

27/09/2012 10:53:33 a.m.

AJ wrote:

Let me get this right : we can get photos of people's faces from satellites. the Hubble telescope can look at galaxies that are so dim they would be visible from Earth if they were 10 billion times brighter. But we can't turn the Hubble telescope towards the Moon and take close up pictures of the moon landing sites? Not that I am a moon landing sceptic, but surely the Hubble could put the old moon landing debate to rest once and for all.