Galaxy Abell 1835 IR1916 is seen as a tiny dot in this photo of distant galaxies. Image courtesy of ESO.
Abell 1835 IR1916 (also known as Abell 1835, Galaxy Abell 1835, or Galaxy Abell 1835 IR1916) was a candidate to be the farthest galaxy ever observed. It was discovered by French and Swiss astronomers of the European Southern Observatory, namely Roser Pelló, Johan Richard, Jean-François Le Borgne, Daniel Schaerer, and Jean-Paul Kneib. The astronomers used a near-infraredinstrument on the Very Large Telescope to detect the galaxy. Other observatories were needed to make an image of it possible. The Observatory, in conjunction with the Swiss National Science Foundation, the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, and Astronomy and Astrophysics, issued a news release on 1 March2004 announcing the discovery. Further analysis by Weatherley et al. (2004) of data that leaded to the first announcement seemed to debunk the claim that this was a distant galaxy. Deeper follow-up observations in the H-band using the Gemini North Telescope did not observe the galaxy anymore (Bremer et al. 2004)
The galaxy was supposed to be 13.2 billion light years away from the Earth, in the Virgo constellation. This means that humans would have observed Abell 1835 IR1916 as it was 13.2 billion years ago, only 500 million years after the Big Bang is thought to have occurred. The candidate galaxy lied behind the galaxy cluster Abell 1835, and was supposed to be gravitationally lensed by the massive cluster in order to be observable.
References
"Astronomy & Astrophysics" (A&A, volume 416, page L35; "ISAAC/VLT observations of a lensed galaxy at z=10.0" (http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361:20040065) by Roser Pelló, Daniel Schaerer, Johan Richard, Jean-François Le Borgne, and Jean-Paul Kneib)
"Astronomy & Astrophysics" (A&A, volume 428 page L29-L32;Reanalysis of the spectrum of the z = 10 galaxy (http://esoads.eso.org/cgi-bin/nph-bib_query?bibcode=2004A%26A...428L..29W&db_key=AST&high=419c4ceb2e22137) by Weatherley, S. J.; Warren, S. J.; Babbedge, T. S. R.
"The Astrophysical Journal" (ApJ, Volume 615, Issue 1, pp. L1-L4; Gemini H-Band Imaging of the Field of a z = 10 Candidate (http://esoads.eso.org/cgi-bin/nph-bib_query?bibcode=2004ApJ...615L...1B&db_key=AST&high=419c4ceb2e07873) by Bremer, M. N.; Jensen, Joseph B.; Lehnert, M. D.; Schreiber, N. M. Förster; Douglas, Laura)
Abell1835IR1916 (also known as Abell1835, GalaxyAbell1835, or GalaxyAbell1835IR1916) is the farthest galaxy seen from Earth by humans (other farther galaxies have been seen, but from outside of the planet).
This means that humans observe Abell1835IR1916 as it was 13.2 billion years ago, only 500 million years after the Big Bang is believed to have occurred.
The galaxy lies behind the galaxy cluster Abell1835, and has been gravitationally lensed in order to be observable, by that cluster.
GalaxyAbell1835IR1916 is seen as a tiny dot in this photo of distant galaxies.
Abell1835IR1916 (also known as Abell1835, GalaxyAbell1835, or GalaxyAbell1835IR1916) is a candidate for being the most distant galaxy ever observed.
This means that Abell1835IR1916 appears to us as it was 13.2 billion years ago, only 500 million years after the Big Bang and very close to the first burst of star formation in the universe.
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