Collection: Collection of Constellations

The Hubble Ultra Deep Field

In undoubtedly its most important observations, the ACS revealed a series of the deepest portraits of the Universe ever obtained by humankind. In the original Hubble Ultra Deep Field (HUDF), unveiled in 2004, the ACS teamed up with Hubble’s Near Infrared Camera and Multi-object Spectrometer (NICMOS) to capture light from galaxies that existed about 13 billion years ago, some 400 to 800 million years after the Big Bang. This million-second-long exposure revealed new insights into some of the first galaxies to emerge from the so-called dark ages, the time shortly after the Big Bang when the first stars reheated the cold, dark Universe.

In later versions, the ACS teamed with other Hubble instruments to refine the depth and reach of the original HUDF. These portraits pushed humanity’s view of the Universe back to within 435 million years of the Big Bang, capturing images of the earliest objects in the cosmos. They forever changed our view of the Universe and spawned innumerable collaborations.