A team of researchers from Academia Sinica, Taiwan’s top research institute, have discovered two new galaxies. One is located 9.6 billion light years from earth, while the other is located 10.7 billion light years away from earth.
The team made their discovery using the Hubble Space Telescope. The team’s findings have been published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
The first, closer galaxy is known as a lensing galaxy because it is so massive that it bends light from objects behind it. The team found the second, much smaller galaxy directly behind the first one. It is very rare for two galaxies to be perfectly aligned in this way.
The discovery is especially significant as only one other lensing galaxy has ever been found at such a great distance from the earth. The discovery is also expected to help scientists unravel the mysteries of dark matter.