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Hubble Spies Tiny Galaxies Aglow with Star Birth in the UDS Field

Hubble Spies Tiny Galaxies Aglow with Star Birth in the UDS Field

This image reveals 28 tiny galaxies uncovered by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. The puny galaxies, shown in the postage-stamp-sized images, existed 9 billion years ago and are brimming with star birth.

The dwarf galaxies are typically a hundred times less massive than the Milky Way galaxy but are churning out stars at such a furious pace that their stellar content would double in just 10 million years. Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 and Advanced Camera for Surveys spied the galaxies in the UKIDSS Ultra Deep Survey field, or UDS (part of the UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey). The galaxies' locations in the UDS field are marked by circles in the large image.

The galaxies stood out in the Hubble images because the energy from all the new stars caused the oxygen in the gas surrounding them to light up like a bright neon sign. The rapid star birth likely represents an important phase in the formation of dwarf galaxies, the most common galaxy type in the cosmos.

The galaxies are among 69 dwarf galaxies found in the UDS and other fields. The images were made from observations taken between August and December 2010.

About the Object

  • R.A. Position
    R.A. PositionRight ascension – analogous to longitude – is one component of an object's position.
    02h 17m 24.0s
  • Dec. Position
    Dec. PositionDeclination – analogous to latitude – is one component of an object's position.
    -5° 12' 0.0"
  • Constellation
    ConstellationOne of 88 recognized regions of the celestial sphere in which the object appears.
    Cetus

About the Data

  • Data Description
    Data DescriptionProposal: A description of the observations, their scientific justification, and the links to the data available in the science archive.
    Science Team: The astronomers who planned the observations and analyzed the data. "PI" refers to the Principal Investigator.
    This image was created from HST data from proposal 12064: S. Faber (University of California, Santa Cruz), et al. The science team for this release is led by A. van der Wel (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg, Germany), and the images were produced by A. Koekemoer (STScI).
  • Instrument
    InstrumentThe science instrument used to produce the data.
    HST>ACS/WFC and HST>WFC3/IR
  • Filters
    FiltersThe camera filters that were used in the science observations.
    ACS/WFC: F606W (V) and F814W (I) WFC3/IR: F125W (J) and F160W (H)
  • Object Name
    Object NameA name or catalog number that astronomers use to identify an astronomical object.
    Ultra Deep Survey (UDS) field and Distant galaxies
  • Object Description
    Object DescriptionThe type of astronomical object.
    Galactic survey (top) and distant galaxies (bottom)
  • Release Date
    November 10, 2011
  • Science Release
    Hubble Uncovers Tiny Galaxies Bursting with Star Birth in Early Universe
    Read the release
  • Credit
    NASA, ESA, A. van der Wel (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg, Germany), H. Ferguson and A. Koekemoer (Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.), and the CANDELS team

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Hubble Spies Tiny Galaxies Aglow with Star Birth in the UDS Field
Color Info
Color InfoA brief description of the methods used to convert telescope data into the color image being presented.

This image is a composite of many separate exposures made by the ACS and WFC3 instruments on the Hubble Space Telescope using different filters that isolate broad wavelengths. The color results from assigning different hues (colors) to each monochromatic image. In this case, the assigned colors are: Blue: F606W (V) Green: F814W (I) Red: F125W (J) + F160W (H)

Compass and Scale
Compass and ScaleAn astronomical image with a scale that shows how large an object is on the sky, a compass that shows how the object is oriented on the sky, and the filters with which the image was made.

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Details

Last Updated
Mar 28, 2025
Contact
Media

Claire Andreoli
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, Maryland
claire.andreoli@nasa.gov

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