Posted: Wed, Jan 6, 2010, 7:04 AM ET (1204 GMT)
A new camera on the Hubble Space Telescope has allowed astronomers to observe the most distant galaxies ever seen, dating back to less than a billion years after the Big Bang. The images, released Tuesday, were taken by the Wide Field Camera 3, which was installed on Hubble during the STS-125 servicing mission last year. The images includes galaxies with redshifts as high as 8.5, dating back to about 600 million years after the Big Bang. The findings imply that the first galaxies formed even earlier, before 500-600 million years after the Big Bang. Observations of more distant, and thus even younger, galaxies will require the use of Hubble's successor, the James Webb Space Telescope, scheduled for launch in 2014.

Related Links:

•  SPACE.com article
•  Science News article
•  AP article
•  Discovery.com article
•  STScI press release