The new Hubble Legacy Field captures the light of 265,000 galaxies
Hi everyone,
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Astronomers today released one of the largest deep-sky images ever obtained with the Hubble Space Telescope. Called the Hubble Legacy Field, it was created from nearly 7,500 individual exposures taken over 16 years and covers an area of sky equivalent to that of the full Moon.
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Size of the Hubble Legacy Field on the sky compared to the of the full Moon. Credit: NASA/ESA
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The image reveals galaxies galore, roughly 265,000 of them seen across time almost all the way back to the Big Bang. Extrapolating from this patch of sky to the entire observable universe means that, well, there are LOTS of galaxies out there. As the Scottish philosopher and writer Thomas Carlyle put it more than a century ago, “If they be not inhabited, what a waste of space.”
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The Hubble Legacy Field contains 100 times more galaxies than seen in previous deep images like the Hubble Deep Field (1995), the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (2004) and the eXtreme Deep Field (2012).
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Close-ups of a few galaxies in the Hubble Legacy Field. The most distant ones are 13 billion light years away, which means we see them as they looked 13 billion years ago. Credit: NASA/ESA
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If you’d like to know more, you can read the Hubble press release here, which includes a short (one-minute) video that pans across the image to show details.
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Hubble’s successor, the James Webb Space Telescope, will reveal even more about the distant universe and the birth of the first galaxies. It will launch in 2021.
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Best regards,
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Michael
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Michael
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 Dr. Michael West is Lowell Observatory’s Deputy Director for Science. Follow his AstroAlerts to receive breaking news stories from the world of astronomy, odd bits of astronomical lore, and information about upcoming astronomical events. You can reach him at mwest@lowell.edu.
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