Galaxy Formation Sequence

View of Distant, Faint Galaxies Reveals Young Galaxy Building Blocks

Embedded in this Hubble Space Telescope image of nearby and distant galaxies are 18 young galaxies or galactic building blocks, each containing dust, gas, and a few billion stars. Each of these objects is 11 billion light-years from Earth and much smaller than today's galaxies....

Faint Blue Sub-Galactic Clumps May Be Galaxies Under Construction

These 18 small blue objects - each 11 billion light-years from Earth - could be the seeds of some of today's galaxies. Each clump contains several billion stars. Astronomers believe that many of these objects have collided and merged with each other over time to grow into the...

Key to Location of Galactic Building Blocks in Hubble Field

The boxes in this color image identify 18 sub-galactic sized objects in a Hubble Space Telescope survey of faint galaxies. All the boxed objects are at the same distance from Eather (11 billion light-years), and are scattered across an area of sky 2 million light-years across....

Hubble Sees Early Building Blocks of Today's Galaxies

Simulation depicting galaxy formation using super-computer models of the gravity of dark matter. Galaxy formation starts shortly after the Big Bang. With each collision between clumps, the objects grow bigger, until we see galaxies like today's. Note that the colors do not...