Far away secrets unveiled - Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes “spy” one of the youngest galaxies in the Universe

Press release EPFL + UniGE (7 february 2014)

Even the most distant galaxies cannot escape astronomers’ reach. The images obtained thanks to the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes have contributed to a better understanding of the process of galaxy genesis. A team made of members from EPFL and the University of Geneva, associated with French, American and Spanish researchers, reports its initial findings.

Image of the distant galaxy, named Y1, disovered behind the galaxy cluster Abell 2744. The photometric redshift of the galaxy is z~8.0, placing it at approximately 13 billion lightyears. The galaxy is thus seen as it was 650 million years after the Big Bang, providing a unique view on galaxy formation in the early Universe, during the so-called phase of cosmic reionization.

Complete text of joint PR EPFL+UniGE
Images
Animations: Travel to the distant galaxy discovered (Quicktime movie [2 MB], avi movie [7MB])
Main publication (pdf, Letter to appear in Astronomy & Astrophysics):
"The first Frontier Fields cluster: 4.5 micron excess in a z ~ 8 galaxy candidate in Abell 2744", N. Laporte et al., 2014, A&A, in press
Links to other press releases:

Associated groups/researchers :

Daniel SCHAERER - UniGE: main web page, contact
Hakim ATEK, Jean-Paul KNEIB - EPFL
Nicolas LAPORTE, A. Streblyanska, Ismael Pérez-Fournon, P. Martinez-Navajas, R. Marques-Chaves -IAC
Frédéric BOONE, Roser Pelló -IRAP
Johan RICHARD - CRAL
Benjamin CLEMENT, Eiichi EGAMI - Tucson

Articles/sites relating the discovery:

Press Releases

Far away secrets unveiled - Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes “spy” one of the youngest galaxies in the Universe