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The Hubble Space Telescope has launched a new campaign to help astronomers better understand the distribution of galaxies in the primitive universe and the conditions that led to their formation, the US space agency said.
Image taken by NASA / ESA's Hubble Space Telescope. The NASA
The new observation campaign, entitled Beyond Ultra-Deep Frontier Fields and Heritage Observations (BUFFALO), will observe six massive galaxy clusters and their environment, less than 800 million years after the Big Bang, according to the NASA.
Abell 370 is the first group to be observed, he added.
Hubble's first observations show the group of Abell 370 galaxies and a host of magnified galaxies with gravitational lenses all around.
Abell 370 is located 4 billion light-years from Earth and is in the constellation of the Cetus – the sea monster.
In order to explore the six galaxy clusters of Frontier Field, 101 Hubble orbits – corresponding to 160 hours of valuable observation time – were dedicated, ESA said.
The BUFFALO survey will also take advantage of other space telescopes that have already observed areas around clusters. These datasets will be included in the search for the first galaxies.
Astronomers predict that the survey will provide new information about when the most massive and luminous galaxies have formed and how they are related to dark matter, and how the dynamics of clusters influence the galaxies around them.
The investigation will also identify images of distant galaxies and supernovae.
Determining how quickly galaxies formed in less than 800 million years after the Big Bang will help astronomers devise strategies for using NASA's future James Webb Space Telescope to explore the distant universe with its infrared vision.
The BUFFALO project, led by European astronomers from the Niels Bohr Institute (Denmark) and the University of Durham (UK), is designed to succeed in the Frontier Fields project.
It involves an international team of nearly 100 astronomers from 13 countries.
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