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

NASA's Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes combined forces to uncover one of the most distant galaxies ever seen. The faraway galaxy, named HUDF-JD2 is not seen in Hubble's visible-light image, but was detected using Hubble's near infrared camera and multi-object spectrometer. It appears even brighter at the longer infrared wavelengths, as revealed by the Spitzer infrared camera.

At visible wavelengths, the light from the galaxy is absorbed by intervening hydrogen gas, and so the galaxy appears faint in the Hubble visible and near-infrared images. The surprise is how bright is appears to Spitzer in the infrared, suggesting a very massive and distant galaxy.

This image is a false-color composite of Hubble/ACS B-band data (blue), Hubble/NICMOS K-band data (red) and Spitzer 8 micron data (red).