PARIS -- French and Swiss astronomers say they have detected the farthest galaxy ever observed, a glimmer that dates back to when the universe was still in its infancy.
The galaxy, dubbed Abell 1835 IR1916, is 13.23 billion light-years from Earth -- beating by a chunk another galaxy that until now was believed to be the farthest known object, said France's state-funded National Center for Scientific Research, a major European research organizations.
Because light from the new find took 13.23 billion years to reach us across the vastness of space, astronomers are seeing the galaxy as it was back then. The universe, believed to have started with the Big Bang some 13.7 billion years ago, would still have been in its infancy.
"It is as if we are seeing the childhood of the galaxy," Roser Pello, a member of the team that found it, told The Associated Press on Monday. "It's a galaxy that is starting to form."
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