15 Mind-Blowing Pictures Of Space

The Hubble Ultra Deep Field is an image of an apparently empty patch of sky no bigger than your fingernail held at arm's length.

The cameras on Hubble were pointed at this patch of sky and left open for long periods of time in order to gather as much light as possible. The resulting image is a composite of the data gathered.

There are over 10,000 galaxies contained in this image (that's galaxies, not stars) and it not only lets us look into the deepest reaches of space, but also into the furthest depths of time.

Because the light from the furthest galaxies takes so long to reach us, we're seeing them as they were up to 13.2 billion years ago, that's as near as dammit to the very beginning of the universe.

The HUDF has allowed us to see the universe in its very infancy and it is one of the deepest images of space ever taken.