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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

See Explanation. Clicking on the picture will download the highest resolution version available.

The Dawn of the Clusters

Explanation: What did the universe look like near the beginning? This exciting photo by the Hubble Space Telescope is one of the deepest ever taken, and shows galaxies as far away as ever before photographed. The universe back then - when only one third of its present age - was a strange and violent place. Back then a large fraction of galaxies were colliding and interacting . In fact, the shapes of many galaxies in the above photo are more distorted than most nearby galaxies . At this early universe epoch many clusters of galaxies were just forming. The bright twisted group of galaxies below the photographs center contains the energetic radio galaxy 3C324.

Date January 15, 1996
Credit Credit: NASA, HST, M. Dickinson (STScI)
Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,
NASA Science Activation & Michigan Tech. U.