this is what the universe looked like before any galaxies had formed

Here, there are no luminous objects

no stars

and certainly no galaxies

When the universe cooled down after the Big Bang

electrons and protons combined

to form neutral hydrogen gas

At this time in our history

no photons could pass through

the universe was opaque.

This dark age ended when the first stars formed and their intense ultraviolet radiation

pierced the veil

by splitting the hydrogen atoms

back into electrons and protons

In this simulation

the dark areas are opaque,

the blue areas translucent.

The fog lifted

when stars were born.

These hot young stars blew away the cosmic fog of hydrogen gas with ultraviolet radiation

and these stars formed into the very first galaxies.

clearing the way for their photons

to begin their too long,

arduous journey across creation.

The first galaxies ever to form,

lifed the universal fog forever.

The era for reionization had begun.

On October 19th 2010,

astronomers announced a measurement of one of the first galaxies

ever to form in the universe,

and it formed during this period.

Sensitive instruments on the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope

recorded a spectrum

of a galaxy first imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope in January, 2010

Starting with a new Ultra Deep Field image taken in January, 2010,

with the upgraded Wide Field Camera 3

sensitive to the infrared

astronomers looked at every faint galaxy within it

these faint galaxies were among the first in existence.

From these faint smudges,

candidates for further study with the ESO SINFONI spectrograph were selected.

These galaxies were so faint,

it wasn't at all clear

if a spectrum could be obtained.

Lying in a very obscure region of the Ultra Deep Field

the ESO astronomers pointed the Very Large Telescope spectrograph

at one of the faintest objects they could see in the image.

Early in time,

this galaxy was once exceedingly bright in the ultraviolet,

but by the time it's light traversed the observable universe to land on our detectors,

its photons had been diminished to a faint, red glow.

The feeble red light from this galaxy

was collected for over sixteen long hours resulting in a spectrum

with a measured redshift of 8.6

This galaxy was alive

13.1 billion years ago

when the cosmos was still in its infancy,

and its redshift is the largest ever recorded

anywhere in the universe.

Looking at galaxies this remote is very difficult,

but they're crucial to our understanding of how galaxies came into existence

This observation of a galaxy

early in the lifetime of the universe of came as a surprise

Galaxies, it seems,

have existed much earlier

than was previously thought.

This distant galaxy not only helped clear the early hydrogen fog blanketing the universe,

it is now also

helping to clear the fog of ignorance

in our understanding

of the earliest period of existence.