Of Fingertips and Galaxies

In May 2019, an international team of astronomers released one of the most important photographs in history. For 16 years, the Hubble Space Telescope surveyed a pinpoint of outer space previously believed to be relatively empty. When 7500 separate images were assembled into a comprehensive mosaic, they discovered at least 265,000 galaxies in an area of sky so small it can be covered by a fingertip held at arm’s length.