Hubble's colorful new image of the universe captures near-ultraviolet light

On Tuesday, NASA released a comprehensive image from the Hubble Space Telescope featuring all of the colors it can detect in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (HUDF), both visible and invisible.

As NBC News reports, the HUDF catalogs thousands of galaxies in the constellation Fornax. Previous images captured everything but near-ultraviolet light — from near-infrared through the visible spectrum, plus far ultraviolet. "The lack of information from ultraviolet light made studying galaxies in the HUDF like trying to understand the history of families without knowing about the grade-school children," Caltech's Harry Teplitz said in a statement.

The gap was filled with observations from the Wide Field Camera 3. Ultraviolet light comes from the largest, hottest, and youngest stars, and by looking at this new picture, astronomers will likely be able to understand how galaxies grew through forming small collections of hot stars. --Catherine Garcia

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up