Spying distant galaxies in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field involves finding faint red objects that appear as more than points of light. The bright object just left of center with spikes coming from it is a star in our own galaxy, one of only a handful in this tiny region of sky.
NASA/ESA
The Hubble Space Telescope’s new Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) has taken its place alongside the orbiting observatory’s other great instruments. The camera allows astronomers to peer deeper into the universe than ever before because it is sensitive to near-infrared radiation. The expansion of the universe shifts visible and ultraviolet light emitted by distant galaxies into the near-infrared, where it would go undetected if not for WFC3.
