More than 12 billion years of cosmic history are shown in this unprecedented, panoramic, full-color view of thousands of galaxies in various stages of assembly. The view covers a portion of the southern field of a large galaxy census called the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey, a deep-sky study by several observatories to trace the formation and evolution of galaxies. The image shows a rich tapestry of thousands galaxies stretching back through most of the universe's history. The closest galaxies seen in the foreground emitted their observed light about a billion years ago. The farthest galaxies, a few of the very faint red specks, are seen as they appeared more than 13 billion years ago, or roughly 650 million years after the Big Bang. From top to bottom, this mosaic spans a tiny slice of space that is equal to 1/6 of the full moon, 5 arcminutes -- or, if you held a penny up to the sky at arms length, and looked at it edge-on, the thickness of the penny would nearly cover the whole vista. This Hubble image is one of several, including the Ultra Deep Field, which peer into seemingly empty space, leaving the camera shutter open for hours, and reveal that billions of galaxies made up of billions of stars fill our skies in every direction as far as we can possibly see, separated by almost unimaginable distance and time, yet still reachable, visible as an image of their long-ago selves. Take a good look at the image above, nearly every speck of color is a galaxy. Seeing that, and thinking of the recent explosion in discoveries of planets outside our own solar system (over 700 found to date), the unbelievably vast scale of possible worlds in the Universe becomes apparent - out there, all around us.
