Hubble Spots Most Distant Galaxy Candidate

NASA has discovered a distant galaxy of blue stars that existed 480 million years after the big bang. The Hubble Space Telescope was pushed to it's limits to find what is likely the most distant object ever seen in the universe. Based on the objects color astronomers believe the light from the object traveled 13.2 billion years to reach the Hubble, which is roughly 150 million years longer than the previous record holder. The age of the universe is approximately 13.7 billion years. This object is the furthest and the earliest that has been seen in the universe. In the picture to the left it appears as a very tiny red dot. Click picture for it to appear larger, or click here to read the NASA article.

This object is thought to be 13.2 billion light-years away due to the objects colors. The object is a candidate galaxy because it's still not confirmed if it is actually a galaxy or not. Whether it's a galaxy or some other object will hopefully be confirmed once the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is completed.

The part about this story that I find so interesting is that this object they are seeing is actually much older than they are seeing with Hubble. This object could actually be much larger now than we can see, or on the other hand it could not even exist anymore. Basically due to how long it takes light from that distance to reach us it's almost like we're looking into the past. The Hubble Space Telescope is kind of like a time machine.