The gargantuan galaxy NGC 1132: The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured a new image of the galaxy NGC 1132 which is, most likely, a cosmic fossil - the aftermath of an enormous multi-galactic pile-up, where the carnage of collision after collision has built up a brilliant but fuzzy giant elliptical galaxy far outshining typical galaxies. NGC 1132, together with the small dwarf galaxies surrounding it, are dubbed a "fossil group" as they are most likely the remains of a group of galaxies that merged together in the recent past. In this Hubble image, NGC 1132 is seen surrounded by thousands of ancient globular clusters, swarming around the galaxy like bees around a hive. These globular clusters are likely to be the survivors of the disruption of their cannibalised parent galaxies that have been eaten by NGC 1132 and may reveal its merger history. In the background, there is a stunning tapestry of numerous galaxies that are much further away.

Name: NGC 1132
Type: Local Universe : Galaxy : Type : EllipticalLocal Universe : Galaxy : Size : Giant
Category: Galaxies
Constellation: Eridanus
Distance: 300 million light years
Release date: 5 February 2008, 15:00
Credit: NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration. Acknowledgment: M. West (ESO, Chile)

NGC 1132 in visible and X-Ray: This image of the elliptical galaxy NGC 1132 combines an image from NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory obtained in 2004 with images from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope made in 2005 and 2006 in green and near-infrared light. The blue/purple in the image is the X-ray glow from hot, diffuse gas. The giant foreground galaxy, numerous dwarf galaxies in its neighbourhood, and many much more distant galaxies in the background are seen in visible light.

Name: NGC 1132
Type: Local Universe : Galaxy : Type : EllipticalLocal Universe : Galaxy : Size : Giant
Category: Galaxies
Constellation: Eridanus
Distance: 300 million light years
Release date: 5 February 2008, 15:00
Credit: NASA, ESA, M. West (ESO, Chile), and CXC/Penn State University/G. Garmire, et al.

Annotated Hubble image of NGC 1132: This Hubble image shows the giant elliptical galaxy NGC 1132 with annotations showing some of the surrounding dwarf galaxies (in red) and some of its numerous globular clusters (in blue). NGC 1132, together with the small dwarf galaxies surrounding it, are dubbed a "fossil group" as they are most likely the remains of a group of galaxies that merged together in the recent past. NGC 1132 is surrounded by thousands of ancient globular clusters, swarming around the galaxy like bees around a hive. These globular clusters are likely to be the survivors of the disruption of their cannibalised parent galaxies that have been eaten by NGC 1132 and may reveal its merger history. In the background, there is a stunning tapestry of numerous galaxies that are much further away.

Name: NGC 1132
Type: Local Universe : Galaxy : Type : EllipticalLocal Universe : Galaxy : Size : Giant
Category: Galaxies
Distance: 300 million light years
Release date: 5 February 2008, 15:00
Credit: NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration. Acknowledgment: M. West (ESO, Chile)

NGC 1132 wide-field (ground-based image): This is a wide-field view of the region around NGC 1132, in the constellation of Eridanus, the River. The field-of-view is approximately 2.7 x 2.9 degrees.

Name: NGC 1132
Type: Local Universe : Galaxy : Type : EllipticalLocal Universe : Galaxy : Size : Giant
Category: Galaxies
Constellation: Eridanus
Distance: 300 million light years
Release date: 5 February 2008, 15:00
Credit: NASA, ESA, and Digitized Sky Survey 2. Acknowledgment: Davide De Martin (ESA/Hubble)

Wide-field view of NGC 1132 vicinity (ground-based image): This image shows the region around NGC 1132, located in the constellation of Eridanus (top right part of the image).

Name: NGC 1132
Type: Local Universe : Galaxy : Type : EllipticalLocal Universe : Galaxy : Size : Giant
Category: Galaxies
Distance: 300 million light years
Release date: 5 February 2008, 15:00
Credit: A. Fujii

Hubble Uncovers One of the Youngest and Brightest Galaxies in the Early Universe: A massive cluster of yellowish galaxies is seemingly caught in a spider's web of eerily distorted background galaxies in the left-hand image, taken with the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) aboard NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The gravity of the cluster's trillion stars acts as a cosmic "zoom lens", bending and magnifying the light of the galaxies located far behind it, a technique called gravitational lensing. The faraway galaxies appear in the Hubble image as arc-shaped objects around the cluster, named Abell 1689. The increased magnification allows astronomers to study remote galaxies in greater detail. One galaxy is so far away, however, it does not show up in the visible-light image taken with ACS (top, right), because its light is stretched to invisible infrared wavelengths by the Universe's expansion. Astronomers used Hubble's Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS) and NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope with its Infrared Array Camera (IRAC) - with help from the gravitational lensing cluster - to see the faraway galaxy. The distant galaxy, dubbed A1689-zD1, appears as a greyish-white smudge in the close-up view taken with Hubble's NICMOS (centre, right), and as a whitish blob in the Spitzer IRAC close-up view (bottom, right). The galaxy is brimming with star birth. Hubble and Spitzer worked together to show that it is one of the youngest galaxies ever discovered. Astronomers estimate that the galaxy is 13 billion light-years away. Abell 1689 is 2.2 billion light-years away. A1689-zD1 was born during the middle of the "dark ages", a period in the early universe when the first stars and galaxies were just beginning to burst to life. The dark ages lasted from about 400,000 to roughly a billion years after the Big Bang. Astronomers think that  A1689-zD1 was one of the galaxies that helped end the dark ages. The ACS images were taken in 2002, the NICMOS images in 2005 and 2007, and the Spitzer IRAC images in 2006.

Name: A1689-zD1, Abell 1689
Type: Early Universe : Galaxy : Type : Gravitationally LensedEarly Universe : Galaxy : Grouping : Cluster
Category: Galaxies
Distance: z=7.6 (redshift)
Release date: 12 February 2008, 15:00
Credit: NASA; ESA; L. Bradley (Johns Hopkins University); R. Bouwens (University of California, Santa Cruz); H. Ford (Johns Hopkins University); and G. Illingworth (University of California, Santa Cruz)

A Young Galaxy Brimming with Star Birth (artist's impression): This is an artist's impression of an embryonic galaxy brimming with star birth in the early Universe, less than a billion years after the Big Bang. The galaxy is still forming and looks nothing like the majestic spiral and elliptical galaxies that are the near neighbours of our own Milky Way Galaxy. The illustration shows several tight clusters of stars bursting to life. They are surrounded by glowing bubbles of hydrogen gas produced by massive stars erupting as supernovae. A tapestry of young, developing galaxies is in the background. The Hubble Space Telescope discovered a young star-forming galaxy like the one in this illustration. The galaxy spied by Hubble was born just 700 million years after the Big Bang.

Name: Abell 1689
Type: Early Universe : Star : Grouping : ClusterEarly Universe : Galaxy
Category: GalaxiesStar Clusters
Distance: z=7.6 (redshift)
Release date: 12 February 2008, 15:00
Credit: NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (Space Telescope Science Institute)