City scientists star-struck

Published on Wednesday 23 September 2009 09:45

SCIENTISTS have captured images of some of the universe's most distant galaxies thanks to a refurbished space telescope.

Ross McLure and James Dunlop of Edinburgh University were part of team which analysed the latest images of deep space beamed down from the Hubble space telescope.

Analyses of infrared images suggest there were fewer bright galaxies early in cosmic history and those galaxies formed stars at an unexpectedly low rate.

"We are looking back 13 billion years and seeing galaxies just 600 to 700 million years after the Big Bang, when the universe was like a four-year-old," said Garth Illingworth of the University of California, who also analysed the images.