A new, improved portrait of Hubble's deepest-ever view of the universe, called the eXtreme Deep Field, or XDF, looks far away and back in time to reveal faint galaxies at one ten-billionth the brightness of what the human eye can see. This is the culmination of 10 years of observing a patch of sky that contains thousands of far-flung galaxies. The full-color XDF image shows previously unseen galaxies as they looked in the early universe, billions of years ago.
Astronomers continue studying this area of sky with Hubble. Extensive ongoing observing programs, led by Harry Teplitz and Richard Ellis at the California Institute of Technology, will allow astronomers to study the deep-field galaxies with Hubble to even greater depths in ultraviolet and infrared light prior to the launch of JWST. These new results will provide even more extraordinary views of this region of the sky and will be shared with the public in the coming months.
Viewers sent in questions for our panel of experts to discuss. The webinar was broadcast at 1 p.m. Thursday Sept 27.
Garth Illingworth, astronomer at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He is the principal investigator of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field 2009 (HUDF09) Project.
Pascal Oesch, astronomer at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He is a co-investigator with the HUDF09 Project.
Dan Magee, programmer/data analyst at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He is a co-investigator with the HUDF09 Project.