Credit: NASA, ESA/JPL-Caltech/B. Mobasher (STScI/ESA)

Spitzer and Hubble Team Up To Find 'Big Baby' Galaxies in the Newborn Universe

This image demonstrates how data from two of NASA's Great Observatories, the Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes, are used to identify one of the most distant galaxies ever seen. This galaxy is unusually massive for its youthful age of 800 million years. (After the Big Bang, the Milky Way by comparison, is approximately 13 billion years old.)

[Left] - The galaxy, named HUDF-JD2, was pinpointed among approximately 10,000 others in a small area of sky called the Hubble Ultra Deep Field. This is the deepest images of the universe ever made at optical and near-infrared wavelengths.

[Upper Right] - A blow-up of one small area of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field is used to identify where the distant galaxy is located (inside green circle). This indicates that the galaxy's visible light has been absorbed by traveling billions of light-years through intervening hydrogen.

[Center Right] - The galaxy was detected using Hubble's near infrared camera and multi-object spectrometer. But at near-infrared wavelengths it is very faint and red.

[Bottom Right] - The Spitzer infrared array camera, easily detects the galaxy at longer infrared wavelengths. The instrument is sensitive to the light from older, redder stars which should make up most of the mass in a galaxy. The brightness of the infrared galaxy suggests that it is quite massive.

About the Object	Object Name: HUDF-JD2, UDF033238.74-274839.9 Object Type: High-Redshift Galaxy in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field Position (J2000): RA: 3h 32m 28s.74 Dec: -27¡ 48' 39".9 Distance: redshift of z = 6.5. Constellation: Fornax
About the Data	Image Credit: NASA, ESA/JPL-Caltech/B. Mobasher (STScI/ESA) Instrument: Hubble (ACS & NICMOS), Spitzer (IRAC) Wavelength: ACS Filters: F435W (B), F606W (V), F775W (i), F850LP (z) NICMOS Filters: F110W (J110) and F160W (H160) IRAC: 3.6, 4.5, 5.8, and 8.0 microns Exposure Date: ACS: September 24, 2003 - January 16, 2004 NICMOS: September 3, 2003 - November 27, 2003 Spitzer: February 2004 Exposure Time: ACS: 11.3 days NICMOS: 4.5 days Spitzer: 5 days Release Date: 27 September 2005
Observers	B. Mobasher (STScI/ESA); M. Dickinson (NOAO) H.C. Ferguson(STScI) M. Giavalisco (STScI) T. Wiklind (STScI/ESA) D. Stark (Caltech) R.S. Ellis (Caltech) M. Fall (STScI) N.A. Grogin (JHU) L. Moustakas (STScI) N. Panagia (STScI/ESA) M. Sosey, M. Stiavelli (STScI) E. Bergeron (STScI) S. Casertano (STScI) P. Ingram (Gemini Obs.) A. Koekemoer (STScI) I. Labbe (Carnegie Obs.) M. Livio (STScI) B. Rogers (Gemini Obs.) C. Scarlata (Inst. For Astronomy, Zurich, Switzerland) J. Venet (ESO) A. Renzini (ESO) P. Rosati (ESO) H. Kuntschner (STECF/ESO) M. Kummel (STECF/ESO) J.R. Walsh (STECF/ESO) H. Yan (SSC, Caltech) M. Dickinson (NOAO) D Stern (JPL) P.R.M. Eisenhardt (JPL) R.-R. Chary (SSC, Caltech) C.J. Conselice (Caltech) C. Papovich (Steward) W.T. Reach (SSC, Caltech) N. Grogin (STScI) L.A. Moustakas (JPL) M. Ouchi (STScI)

Individual Images

	Hubble Ultra Deep Field. Screen-Resolution (450x450): JPEG High-Resolution (3100x3100): JPEG | Mac TIFF | PC TIFF Credit: NASA, ESA/R. Windhorst (ASU) and H. Yan (SSC, Caltech)
	Hubble visible-light view. Screen-Resolution (450x313): JPEG High-Resolution (948x660): JPEG | Mac TIFF | PC TIFF Credit: NASA, ESA/B. Mobasher (STScI/ESA)
	Hubble near-infrared view. Screen-Resolution (450x313): JPEG High-Resolution (948x660): JPEG | Mac TIFF | PC TIFF Credit: NASA, ESA/B. Mobasher (STScI/ESA)
	Spitzer infrared view. Screen-Resolution (450x313): JPEG High-Resolution (948x660): JPEG | Mac TIFF | PC TIFF Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/B. Mobasher (STScI/ESA)

The Spitzer Space Telescope is a NASA mission managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. This website is maintained by the Spitzer Science Center, located on the campus of the California Institute of Technology and part of NASA's Infrared Processing and Analysis Center.