Hubble telescope discovers the most distant galaxy ever observed

Highlighting the MACS0647-JD Galaxy, the most distant ever seen by humans (Image source: HubbleSite)

The Hubble telescope has just discovered the most distant object in the universe: the MACS0647-JD galaxy, which is 13.3 billion light years from Earth and can only be seen with the help of very powerful lenses. The celestial object is so far away that Hubble could not even observe it directly. To accomplish the task, image enlargements and the use of 17 different filters were required, and MACS0647-JD appeared in only two of the telescope's reddest filters.

According to Dan Coe of the Space Telescope Science Institute, this means that “MACS0647-JD is a very red object that shines only at red wavelengths, or is extremely far away” and its light, altered by the deviation effect to red, it comes to us that way. Coe also does not rule out a combination of the two hypotheses.

Very little is known about the nature of MACS0647-JD, but scientists can already tell you some facts about it. To begin with, this is a very small galaxy, “only” 600 light years across, a derisive measure given the fact that the Milky Way is about 150, 000 light years across. This indicates, for example, that MACS0647-JD is, or was, a proto-galaxy - that is, it may have been a small group of stars that formed shortly after the Big Bang and eventually merged with others. clusters to form a galaxy like the one we know today.