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SANTIAGO, Chile, Dec. 4 (UPI) -- A faint, compact galaxy imaged by NASA's Hubble and Spitzer telescopes is the farthest ever observed. The object hails from the early universe. Researchers described the new galaxy in a paper published this week in the Astrophysical Journal.
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"Thanks to this detection, the team has been able to study for the first time the properties of extremely faint objects formed not long after the big bang," lead study author Leopoldo Infante, an astronomer at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, said in a news release.
Infante and his colleagues dubbed the galaxy Tayna, meaning "first born" in Aymara, an indigenous language of the Andes.
Tayna is one of 22 young galaxies recently found at the edge of the universe's horizon, part of an effort to locate the faintest of cosmic objects and those that might offer additional clues as to how the universe evolved shortly after the Big Bang.
Scientists liken Tayna's size to that of the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small satellite galaxy circling the Milky Way. Telescopes were only able to see the galaxy thanks to MACS0416.1-2403, a galaxy cluster 4 billion light-years away that acts as a natural magnifying lens for objects farther behind it.
Because astronomers are effectively looking back in time, Tayna is a very young galaxy and still full of star-birthing energy. The latest images show Tayna as it was just 400 million years after the Big Bang.
Researchers were able to estimate the galaxy's distance by measuring its light's shifting color profile. As the blue light of young stars travels through space it becomes stretched into infrared wavelengths and appears redder. The reddening increases with distance, and is further accentuated as cool gas along the way absorbs its blue light.
Scientists say the latest discovery is only the beginning, and that as newer, larger observatories like the James Webb Space Telescope come online, finding even younger, farther galaxies will be possible.
