This composite color image of a giant primordial bubble of gas, dubbed Himiko (after the queen of ancient Japan), is assembled from Hubble, Subaru, and Spitzer data. The left panel shows the field around Himiko, as viewed by Hubble. The position of Himiko is marked with a...
Astronomers using the combined power of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) telescope have discovered a far-flung trio of primitive galaxies nestled inside an enormous blob of primordial gas. The rare triple system existed when the universe was only 800 million years old. The trio may eventually merge into a single massive galaxy, researchers predict. The researchers state that the system provides key insights into the earliest stages of galaxy formation.
