Asrophys. J. 678, 647–654 (2008) doi:10.1086/533519

Astronomers have spotted what seems to be the most distant galaxy ever observed.

The galaxy dates to 13 billion years ago, when the Universe was less than a billion years old. Larry Bradley of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, and his colleagues spotted it by pointing the Hubble Space Telescope at a nearby galaxy cluster. The cluster's mass, about a thousand times that of the Milky Way, worked as a lens, magnifying the light from the galaxy behind it.

Bradley says the team now plans to try and obtain the galaxy's spectrum in order to confirm its distance. Such data could also provide important insights into how galaxies formed in the early Universe.