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An international team of astronomers
has discovered the most distant galaxy in the universe to date. They
found it by combining the unique sharpness of the Hubble telescope with
the light-collecting power of the W. M. Keck Telescopes with an added
boost from a gravitational lens in space.
The results show the young galaxy
is as far as 13 billion light-years from Earth, based on an estimated
age for the universe of approximately 14 billion years. The Hubble picture
at left shows the young galaxy as a red crescent to the lower right
of center. The galaxy's image is brightened, magnified, and smeared
into this arc-shape by the gravitational influence of an intervening
galaxy cluster, which acts like a gigantic lens.