Hubble will use "natural telescopes" to find the oldest galaxies in the universe

Hubble may be old, but he can still study incredibly distant objects in the universe. NASA is even undertaking a project to increase Hubble's vision with the help of some "natural telescopes" located in deep space. The researchers hope that these new observations will tell us more about the structure of the universe and will reveal how the first galaxies formed in the eons after the Big Bang.

Hubble's new initiative is called Beyond Ultra-Deep Frontier Fields and Legacy Observations (BUFFALO), and it will take more than 160 hours of observation on Hubble. This is huge when it comes to the most powerful space telescope in service, and for several more years with the latest delays of the James Webb Space Telescope.

You have probably seen the various "Deep Field" plans of the Hubble telescope. These images are incredible, but they only show a small glow of the sky. This is not useful for understanding the overall structure of the universe. In the Frontier Fields program, NASA used the Spitzer Space Telescope to study much larger areas of the sky, but it could not measure the distances between all the galaxies in these regions. BUFFALO will return to some of these regions if the nature of the universe gives it a decisive advantage.

In the six areas of observation, Hubble will examine groups of galaxies so dense that the tissue of the space will deform. Most of the mass causing the deformation effect is due to the presence of invisible dark matter. This effect is known as the gravitational lens and results in natural magnification of objects on the other side of the lens. So, Hubble can see further in time and space.

Abel 370 is the first group in the Hubble list, and you can see one of the images above. The tense galaxy near the center is known as the dragon. It is actually five different images of the same galaxy produced by the gravity of the cluster of galaxies. The shape of the dragon bow can also help scientists trace the shape of the lens and determine its mass.

Scientists hope that studying what is happening on the other side of these lenses will help NASA identify galaxies that have formed as little as 800 million years after the Big Bang. This could shed light on our theories of how galaxies meet, as well as why they are distributed in the universe in a Web-like model. The team will make more BUFFALO data available as the project progresses.

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