Farthest galaxy ever observed: 13.5 billion light-years away

Our knowledge of the universe continues to be constantly updated. Finally, astronomers have observed the most distant galaxy ever known. The galaxy named HD1 is 100 million light-years further away than GN-z11, which previously held the same title.

May have a supermassive black hole

In 2020, astronomers observed the GN-z11 galaxy 13.4 billion light-years away. This observation revealed the most distant galaxy ever. Finally, astronomers imaged the HD1 galaxy, 13.5 billion light-years away, and renewed the record for the most distant galaxy known.

To detect HD1, astronomers used around 1,200 hours of observations from the Spitzer Space Telescope, Subaru Telescope, UK Infrared Telescope and VISTA Telescope.

The team is pretty confident that their results are correct, but will re-check their view of HD1 using the James Webb Space Telescope.

Astronomers offer two ideas about galaxy HD1. The first is that the galaxy is forming stars quite rapidly and may possibly even host Population III stars, the universe’s first stars, thought to have never been observed until now. The other idea is that HD1 could have a supermassive black hole about 100 million times the mass of the Sun.