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sound effects

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The deeper we look into SPACE,
the farther back we see

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in TIME. Light travels

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670 million miles an hour. But
even at this speed, light

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light from even the closest big
galaxies takes millions of
years to reach us.

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Looking deep is looking back

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back to when the universe was
younger. Right now,

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our best tool for viewing the
young universe is NASA's Hubble
Space Telescope.

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This is Hubble's

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deepest view into space, known
as the Hubble Ultra Deep Field.

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Here, astronomers have found
galaxies so far

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away that their light began its
journey to us more than

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13 billion years ago. We're
seeing these galaxies as they
were

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when the universe was just 600
million years old.

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In human terms, this discovery
is comparable to a teenager

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looking at a 6-month-old
baby.But for these galaxies,

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the universe was no nursery. It
was more like a brutal

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football game.

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The earliest galaxies were
small dwarfs — smaller even
than the ones

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Hubble has seen. They grew by
colliding and merging with
other small galaxies,

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as shown in this simulation.
Over billions

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of years, these mergers built
up the giant galaxies we see

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today. Mergers triggered pulses
of star formation

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that created the elements
necessary for planets ... and
ultimately,

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life. But to see beyond Hubble,

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to witness the origin and
development of galaxies,

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astronomers need a new tool.

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This is Hubble's successor, the
James Webb Space Telescope,
which is

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now being built. Its mirror —
2.75 the size

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of Hubble's — and instruments
are optimized for a part

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of the spectrum where the most
distant galaxies shine — the
infrared.

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Hubble sees

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infant galaxies. The James Webb

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Space Telescope will see
newborns.