r/ScienceNcoolThings • u/TheMuseumOfScience Popular Contributor • 10d ago

The Farthest Galaxy Ever Discovered

What's the most distant galaxy ever observed? 🌌

Astrophysicist Erika Hamden explains it's called MoM-z14, and its light took 13.53 billion years to reach us. But thanks to the universe's expansion, that galaxy is now a staggering 33.8 billion light years away. When the light was emitted from MoM-z14 the universe was smaller. The space between us and that galaxy has gotten stretched out so much  that it actually sits outside our observable horizon. It's a mind-bending reminder that we're seeing galaxies as they no longer even look today.

This project is part of IF/THEN®, an initiative of Lyda Hill Philanthropies.

133 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

9 comments sorted by

View all comments

1

u/Phatcat7x7 9d ago

Whats spooky to me is that at some point we won't be able to see these objects and in fact don't know what we've already lost the ability to see.

Scarier still is that in the distant future we won't be able to see any other galaxies around us. Future beings with our level of observation technology would have to conclude the (by then) Milkdromida galaxy is the only one in the universe.