Astronomers have just announced they have discovered what may be the most distant galaxy ever seen, smashing the previous record holder. This galaxy is at a mind-crushing distance of 13.2 billion light years from Earth, making it not just the most distant galaxy but also the most distant extant object ever detected!
Here is the object in question:
The small box shows the location of the galaxy, which is invisible by eye in the image. The zoomed region shows it in the infrared, where it glows more strongly.
[NOTE: Let me be clear up front and say that this is a candidate galaxy, since it hasn't been confirmed using other distance determination methods. However, having read the paper I think the astronomers did an excellent job showing this is very likely to be a galaxy 13.2 giga-light years away. From here on out I'll refer to it as if it's real, but to be fair bear in mind there is some small chance it may turn out not to be real.]
Named UDFj-39546284, the galaxy is seen as it was just 480 million years after the Universe itself formed! The previous record holder —
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