The Hubble Legacy Field is an image of a small region of

space Space is a three-dimensional continuum containing positions and directions. In classical physics, physical space is often conceived in three linear dimensions. Modern physicists usually consider it, with time, to be part of a boundless ...

in the constellation

Fornax Fornax () is a constellation in the southern celestial hemisphere, partly ringed by the celestial river Eridanus (constellation), Eridanus. Its name is Latin for furnace. It was named by French astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille in 1756. Forna ...

, containing an estimated 265,000

galaxies A galaxy is a system of stars, stellar remnants, interstellar gas, dust, and dark matter bound together by gravity. The word is derived from the Greek ' (), literally 'milky', a reference to the Milky Way galaxy that contains the Solar Sys ...

. The original release was composed of

Hubble Space Telescope The Hubble Space Telescope (HST or Hubble) is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. It was not the Orbiting Solar Observatory, first space telescope, but it is one of the largest and most ...

data accumulated over a 16-year period. Looking back approximately 13 billion years (between 400 and 800 million years after the

Big Bang The Big Bang is a physical theory that describes how the universe expanded from an initial state of high density and temperature. Various cosmological models based on the Big Bang concept explain a broad range of phenomena, including th ...

) it has been used to search for galaxies that existed at that time. It is considered the largest amount of galaxies captured by the Hubble Space Telescope in one image. The image was taken in a section of the sky with a low density of bright stars in the near-field, allowing much better viewing of dimmer, more distant objects. It builds on the data collected for the

Hubble Ultra-Deep Field The Hubble Ultra-Deep Field (HUDF) is a List of deep fields, deep-field image of a small region of outer space, space in the constellation Fornax, containing an estimated 10,000 galaxies. The original data for the image was collected by the Hub ...

, the

Hubble eXtreme Deep Field The Hubble Ultra-Deep Field (HUDF) is a deep-field image of a small region of space in the constellation Fornax, containing an estimated 10,000 galaxies. The original data for the image was collected by the Hubble Space Telescope from Septembe ...

and the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey. Located southwest of

Orion Orion may refer to: Common meanings * Orion (constellation), named after the mythical hunter * Orion (mythology), a hunter in Greek mythology Arts and media Fictional entities Characters and species * Orion (character), a DC Comics c ...

in the southern-hemisphere constellation

, the approximately rectangular image is about 25

arcminutes A minute of arc, arcminute (abbreviated as arcmin), arc minute, or minute arc, denoted by the symbol , is a unit of angular measurement equal to of a degree. Since one degree is of a turn, or complete rotation, one arcminute is of a tu ...

to an edge. This is almost the

angular diameter The angular diameter, angular size, apparent diameter, or apparent size is an angular separation (in units of angle) describing how large a sphere or circle appears from a given point of view. In the vision sciences, it is called the ''visual an ...

of a full moon viewed from

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to Planetary habitability, harbor life. This is enabled by Earth being an ocean world, the only one in the Solar System sustaining liquid surface water. Almost all ...

(which is about 31 arcminutes, or a half a degree). The images and data release were announced on May 2, 2019, by NASA. The most recent data release for the GOODS-North/South is Hubble Legacy Field Data Release V2.5 which includes 13,308 exposures with a total exposure duration of 10 million seconds covering UV, optical, and infrared images, including the original dataset from the previous versions. These high-resolution images in various wavelength ranges in the new data release enable astronomers to create spectral energy distributions, which aids in the construction of the GOODS-S Photometric Catalog via photometric analysis. In a 2024 paper, the GOODS-S data was shown to exhibit an extreme galaxy overdensity at

redshift In physics, a redshift is an increase in the wavelength, and corresponding decrease in the frequency and photon energy, of electromagnetic radiation (such as light). The opposite change, a decrease in wavelength and increase in frequency and e ...

''z'' = 5.4 by observations made by the Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam) instrument aboard James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). These observations allowed for the discovery of a large-scale structure in the GOODS-S data, consisting of stellar populations within surrounding galaxies and associated dark matter halos, which were characterized and then used to refine previous models of galaxy formation and evolution directly after the Epoch of

Reionization In the fields of Big Bang theory and physical cosmology, cosmology, reionization is the process that caused electrically neutral atoms in the primordial universe to reionize after the lapse of the "Timeline of the Big Bang#Dark Ages, dark ages". ...

(''z'' > 6). For context, this characterization of redshift data provided by these stellar populations extends back in time to roughly 1 billion years after the

, or 600,000 years after the

Cosmic microwave background The cosmic microwave background (CMB, CMBR), or relic radiation, is microwave radiation that fills all space in the observable universe. With a standard optical telescope, the background space between stars and galaxies is almost completely dar ...

was formed due to recombination.

Planning

As with the earlier fields, this one was required to contain very little emission from our galaxy, with little

Zodiacal dust The interplanetary dust cloud, or zodiacal cloud (as the source of the zodiacal light), consists of cosmic dust (small particles floating in outer space) that pervades the space between planets within planetary systems, such as the Solar System ...

. The field was also required to be in a range of

declinations In astronomy, declination (abbreviated dec; symbol ''δ'') is one of the two angles that locate a point on the celestial sphere in the equatorial coordinate system, the other being hour angle. The declination angle is measured north (positive) or ...

such that it could be observed both by southern hemisphere instruments, such as the

Atacama Large Millimeter Array The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) is an astronomical interferometer of 66 radio telescopes in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile, which observe electromagnetic radiation at millimeter and submillimeter wavelengths. The ar ...

, and northern hemisphere ones, such as those located on

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; ) is an island U.S. state, state of the United States, in the Pacific Ocean about southwest of the U.S. mainland. One of the two Non-contiguous United States, non-contiguous U.S. states (along with Alaska), it is the only sta ...

. It was ultimately decided to observe a section of the

Chandra Deep Field South The Chandra Deep Field South (CDF-S) is an image taken by the Chandra X-ray Observatory satellite. The location was chosen because, like the Lockman Hole, it is a relatively clear "window" through the ubiquitous clouds of neutral hydrogen gas i ...

, due to existing deep X-ray observations from

Chandra X-ray Observatory The Chandra X-ray Observatory (CXO), previously known as the Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility (AXAF), is a Flagship-class space telescope launched aboard the during STS-93 by NASA on July 23, 1999. Chandra is sensitive to X-ray sources ...

and two interesting objects already observed in the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey sample at the same location: a redshift 5.8 galaxy and a supernova. The coordinates of the field are

right ascension Right ascension (abbreviated RA; symbol ) is the angular distance of a particular point measured eastward along the celestial equator from the Sun at the equinox (celestial coordinates), March equinox to the (hour circle of the) point in questio ...

declination In astronomy, declination (abbreviated dec; symbol ''δ'') is one of the two angles that locate a point on the celestial sphere in the equatorial coordinate system, the other being hour angle. The declination angle is measured north (positive) or ...

(

J2000 In astronomy, an epoch or reference epoch is a moment in time used as a reference point for some time-varying astronomical quantity. It is useful for the celestial coordinates or orbital elements of a celestial body, as they are subject to ...

Observations

The Hubble Legacy Field is composed of data from 7,500 exposures, with a total exposure time of 250 days.

Video

References

External links

Scalable interactive Hubble Legacy Field. Wikisky.org
at HubbleSite {{Fornax Hubble Space Telescope images Physical cosmology Sky regions Fornax Astronomy image articles 2019 works 2010s photographs

Planning

Observations

Video

See also

References

External links