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File:Hubble - infant galaxy.jpg

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Summary

Description

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope snapped a view of what may be the youngest galaxy ever seen. This "late bloomer" may not have begun active star formation until about 13 billion years after the Big Bang. Called I Zwicky 18 (bottom-left of the image), the galaxy may be as young as 500 million years old. This youngster has gone though several sudden bursts of star formation — the first only some 500 million years ago and the latest only 4 million years ago. This galaxy is typical of the kinds of galaxies that inhabited the early universe. The galaxy is classified as a dwarf irregular galaxy and is much smaller than our Milky Way.

The two major starburst regions are the concentrated bluish-white knots embedded in the heart of the galaxy. The wispy blue filaments surrounding the central starburst region are bubbles of gas that have been heated by stellar winds and intense ultraviolet radiation unleashed by hot, young stars. The redder stars are slightly older stars and star clusters, but they are still less than 1 billion years old. A companion galaxy lies just above and to the right of the dwarf galaxy. The companion may be interacting with the dwarf galaxy and may have triggered that galaxy's recent star formation. The red blobs surrounding the dwarf galaxy are the dim glow from ancient fully formed galaxies.
Date
Source HubbleSite: NewsCenter (direct link)
Author NASA, ESA, Y. Izotov (Main Astronomical Observatory, Kyiv, UA) and T. Thuan (University of Virginia)

Licensing

Public domain
This file is in the public domain because it was created by NASA and ESA. NASA Hubble material (and ESA Hubble material prior to 2009) is copyright-free and may be freely used as in the public domain without fee, on the condition that only NASA, STScI, and/or ESA is credited as the source of the material. This license does not apply if ESA material created after 2008 or source material from other organizations is in use.

The material was created for NASA by Space Telescope Science Institute under Contract NAS5-26555, or for ESA by the Hubble European Space Agency Information Centre. Copyright statement at hubblesite.org or 2008 copyright statement at spacetelescope.org.

For material created by the European Space Agency on the spacetelescope.org site since 2009, use the {{ESA-Hubble}} tag.

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Date/TimeThumbnailDimensionsUserComment
current11:05, 15 July 2006Thumbnail for version as of 11:05, 15 July 2006981 × 961 (621 KB)Millosh{{pd-usgov-nasa}}

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