Hubble Goes 'Deep' to Sample Young Galaxies: NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope reached back to nearly the beginning of time to sample thousands of infant galaxies. This image, taken with Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys, shows several thousand galaxies, many of which appear to be interacting or in the process of forming. Some of these galaxies existed when the cosmos was less than about 2 billion years old. The foreground galaxies, however, are much closer to Earth. Two of them [the white, elongated galaxies, left of center] appear to be colliding. This image represents less than one-tenth of the entire field surveyed by Hubble. The full field, consisting of about 25,000 galaxies, is part of a larger survey called the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey (GOODS), the most ambitious study of the early universe yet undertaken with the Hubble telescope. This survey targeted two representative spots in the sky - one in the Northern Hemisphere and the other in the Southern Hemisphere. This image represents the southern field, located in the constellation Fornax. The entire GOODS survey reveals roughly 50,000 galaxies. Astronomers have identified more than 2,000 of them as infant galaxies, observed when the universe was less than about 2 billion years old.

Name: HDF, Hubble Deep Field
Type: Early Universe : Cosmology : Morphology : Deep Field
Category: CosmologyGalaxies
Constellation: Fornax
Release date: 19 June 2003, 16:00
Credit: NASA, ESA, the GOODS Team and M. Giavalisco (STScI)

Chandra Deep Field-North: The Chandra Deep Field-North image was made by observing an area of the sky over half the size of the full moon for 23 days. It is the most sensitive or "deepest" X-ray exposure ever made. By combining the Chandra and Hubble data for this field, astronomers can take a census of the fraction of young galaxies that contain active supermassive black holes back to a time when the universe was only about one billion years old, less than 10 percent of its present age. The data show that these very distant supermassive black holes are rare, more so than some expected.

Name: CDF-N, Chandra Deep Field North
Type: Early Universe : Cosmology : Morphology : Deep Field
Category: Cosmology
Constellation: Ursa Major
Release date: 19 June 2003, 16:00
Credit: NASA/ESA/CXC/Penn State/D.M. Alexander, F.E. Bauer, W.N. Brandt et al.

Cosmic timeline: Observatories continue to reach farther back in time to study the evolution of stars and galaxies. This illustration shows that the Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Hubble Space Telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys looked back billions of years to see the first galaxies. Their combined effort was part of the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey (GOODS). Hubble's successor, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), will gaze even farther back in time to the birth of the first stars.

Name: Hubble Space Telescope, James Webb Space Telescope, Universe
Type: Early Universe : Cosmology : Morphology : Deep Field
Category: CosmologyIllustrationsJames Webb Space TelescopeMiscellaneous
Release date: 19 June 2003, 16:00
Credit: NASA/ESA and Ann Feild (STScI)

HDF-N HST/ACS/WFC Full Mosaic: Full mosaic of the Hubble Deep Field North. The full field, consisting of about 25,000 galaxies, is part of a larger survey called the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey (GOODS), the most ambitious study of the early universe yet undertaken with the Hubble telescope. This survey targeted two representative spots in the sky - one in the Northern Hemisphere and the other in the Southern Hemisphere. This image represents the northern field. The entire GOODS survey reveals roughly 50,000 galaxies. Astronomers have identified more than 2,000 of them as infant galaxies, observed when the universe was less than about 2 billion years old.

Name: HDF-N, Hubble Deep Field North
Type: Early Universe : Cosmology : Morphology : Deep Field
Category: CosmologyGalaxies
Constellation: Ursa Major
Release date: 19 June 2003, 16:00
Credit: NASA, ESA, the GOODS Team and M. Giavalisco (STScI)