UBC astronomers unveil the most detailed view of 12-billion-year-old space nursery

UBC astronomer and post-doctoral fellow Gaelen Marsden has produced the most detailed images of deep space from 12 billion years ago, using data from the European Space Agency’s Herschel Space Observatory.

Recently presented at the first International Herschel Science Meeting in Madrid, Spain, the images by Marsden reveal tens of thousands of newly discovered galaxies at the early stages of formation – just one billion years after the Big Bang, when the Universe was a thriving nursery of newly-formed stars.

“These images allow us to see 10 times more galaxies than ever before and with stunning clarity,” says Marsden, who has spent the past few years working on similar but lower-resolution images from previously collected data.

The images are available at www.phas.ubc.ca/~halpern/hermes/

For more information, visit www.science.ubc.ca/news/340