This image, captured on Oct. 22, 2017, shows galaxy cluster MACSJ0717.5+3745, one of six being studied by the Hubble Frontier Fields program. Due to the huge mass of the cluster, it is bending the light of background objects, acting as a magnifying lens. It is one of the most massive galaxy clusters known.

(NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center)

At a Glance

An ancient galaxy named G09 83808 was discovered by astronomers using the Large Millimeter Telescope, one of the most powerful in the world.The galaxy is estimated to be roughly 12.8 billion years old, making it only 1 billion years younger than the Big Bang.It is the second oldest celestial object ever found.

With the help of one of the world’s most powerful telescopes, astronomers have discovered a distant galaxy only one billion years younger than the Big Bang.

Named G09 83808, , according to the researchers. It is the second oldest, most distant and dusty star-forming galaxy ever detected.

"The Big Bang happened 13.7 billion years agoand now we are seeing this galaxy from 12.8 billion years ago, so ," University of Massachusetts at Amherst astrophysicist Min Yun said in a release on the discovery. “Seeing an object within the first billion years is remarkable because the universe was fully ionized – that is, it was too hot and too uniform to form anything for the first 400 million years.

“Our best guess is that the first stars and galaxies and black holes all formed within the first half a billion to one billion years,” he added. “This new object is very close to being one of the first galaxies ever to form.”

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The galaxy was spotted with , which was built with the intent to study the physical processes of the evolution of planetary systems, black holes, galaxies and stars, and the way they were formed.

G09 83808 is the oldest object ever picked up by the telescope.

The researchers were able to determine that the object is extremely distant by measuring its redshift, which takes into account the expansion speed of the universe, according to the release. Objects that are farther have larger redshifts.

“These high redshift, very distant objects are a class of mythical beasts in astrophysics,” said Yun. “We always knew there were some out there that are enormously large and bright, but they are invisible in visible light spectrum because they are so obscured by the thick dust clouds that surround their young stars.”

“Now, it could be that there are a whole bunch of them out there and we haven’t been able to see them, but with the LMT we have the power to see them. Maybe they’ll start popping out,” he added. “We are in the discovery field. Every time I reduce one of these data sets, I’m full of anticipation.

“I’m always hoping that these things will pop out. You have to be a hopeless optimist to be doing this kind of work, and this time it absolutely paid off.”