Since the Hubble Space Telescope's launch and the advent of advanced observatories, astronomers have captured tens of thousands of stunning cosmic images. While many discoveries are relatively nearby, others push the boundaries, originating from just hundreds of millions of years after the Big Bang.
Looking far into space means looking back in time. Detecting these remote cosmic objects and structures is crucial for piecing together the universe's history and refining our theoretical models.
Such finds often challenge prevailing theories, particularly when galaxies or black holes appear mere moments after the Big Bang.
The dwarf planet Eris
Eris, officially (136199) Eris, outweighs Pluto with a diameter of 2326 km, ranking as the ninth most massive body orbiting the Sun. Discovered in January 2005, it has a moon called Dysnomia and lies about 97 AU—or 1.451×1010 km—from the Sun, the farthest known dwarf planet.
Voyager 1, the farthest human-made object
Launched on September 5, 1977, as part of NASA's Voyager program, Voyager 1 crossed the heliopause in 2012, entering interstellar space. Now about 143 AU (0.23% of a light-year) from Earth, it holds the record as humanity's most distant probe.
Exoplanets SWEEPS-04 and SWEEPS-11
SWEEPS-04 orbits SWEEPS J175853.92-291120.6 in Sagittarius, while SWEEPS-11 circles SWEEPS J175902.67−291153.5, also in Sagittarius. Both lie roughly 27,710 light-years away, making them the most distant confirmed exoplanets.
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The ULAS J1342+0928 quasar
In the constellation Boötes, this quasar harbors a supermassive black hole of about 800 million solar masses. Discovered in December 2017 with a redshift of z=7.54 (13.1 billion light-years away), it dates to less than 690 million years post-Big Bang—the most distant quasar known.
The blue supergiant Icarus
MACS J1149 Lensed Star 1, or Icarus, a magnified blue supergiant, was revealed by gravitational lensing from galaxy cluster MACS J1149+2223 (5 billion light-years distant). At 9.34 billion light-years, it's the most distant individual star observed.
The core-collapse supernova SN 1000+0216
Core-collapse supernovae (Types II, Ib, Ic) mark the explosive end of massive stars. This superluminous example, SN 1000+0216, shines from 12 billion light-years away—the farthest supernova detected.
The GRB 090423 gamma-ray burst
Gamma-ray bursts arise from cataclysmic events like supernovae or neutron star mergers. GRB 090423, spotted in April 2009 at z=8.2 (13 billion light-years), is the most distant GRB recorded.
Galaxy GN-z11
This irregular, high-redshift galaxy in Ursa Major spans about 1 billion solar masses. With z=11.09 (13.4 billion light-years away), we see it as it was just 400 million years after the Big Bang—the most distant galaxy discovered.
