NASA releases combination photo of Hubble exposures

NASA has released a combination photo of 7,500 separate Hubble exposures after 16 years of observations. The image contains 265,000 galaxies that stretch through 13.3 billion years of time, which is just after our universe's birth in the big bang.

A Hubble Space Telescope image representing the largest, most comprehensive "history book" of galaxies in the universe. [Photo: IC]

Astronomers made the new deep-field image by weaving together exposures from several previous galaxy "fishing expeditions."

The wavelength range stretches from ultraviolet to near-infrared light, capturing all the features of the galaxy's assembly over time.

A graphic revealing close-up images of 15 galaxies from the 265,000 galaxies in the Hubble Legacy Field. [Photo: IC]

A graphic comparing the dimensions of the Hubble Legacy Field on the sky with the angular size of the Moon. [Photo: IC]

This image shows the sizes and locations within the Hubble Legacy Field of the two areas that Hubble first studied in this region, the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey and the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (HUDF), along with the deepest image ever taken by Hubble, the eXtreme Deep Field. [Photo: IC]