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Hubble may be one-time, simply it tin nevertheless survey incredibly distant objects in the universe. NASA is fifty-fifty undertaking a projection to broaden Hubble's eyesight with the aid of some "natural telescopes" in deep space. Researchers hope that these new observations volition tell us more about the structure of the universe and reveal how the starting time galaxies formed in the eons post-obit the Big Bang.

The new Hubble initiative is called Beyond Ultra-deep Frontier Fields And Legacy Observations (BUFFALO), and information technology will have up more than than 160 hours of observation time on Hubble. That's a huge amount when it's all the same the most powerful space telescope in operation, and will be for several more than years with the latest James Webb Infinite Telescope delays.

You've probably seen the various "Deep Field" shots from the Hubble telescope. These images are incredible, just they only show a tiny sliver of the sky. That's non useful in understanding the overall structure of the universe. In the Frontier Fields program, NASA used the Spitzer Space Telescope to survey much wider areas of the sky, merely it could not measure out the distances to all the galaxies in those regions. BUFFALO will revisit some of these regions were the nature of the universe gives it a decisive reward.

In the six observational regions, Hubble will peer through clusters of galaxies so dense that the textile of space becomes warped. Virtually of the mass causing the warped effect is thank you to the presence of invisible dark matter. This consequence is known as gravitational lensing and results in a natural magnification of objects on the other side of the lens. Thus, Hubble can see farther out into time and space.

Abel 370 is the first of the clusters on Hubble's listing, and you lot tin come across one of the images above. The stretched milky way virtually the center is known as the dragon. It's really five unlike images of the same galaxy produced by the galaxy cluster'south gravity. The shape of the dragon's arc tin can also help scientists trace the shape of the lens and decide its mass.

Scientists hope that study of what's on the other side of these lenses will assist NASA pinpoint galaxies that formed as lilliputian every bit 800 million years after the Big Blindside. That could inform our theories of how galaxies come together, too as why they're distributed across the universe in a web-like design. The team will make more than BUFFALO data available as the project progresses.

At present read: Hubble Captures 15,000 Galaxies in a Single Stunning Image, Hubble Detects Most Distant Star Ever, and Hubble Discovers Planet with Metallic Snowfall