Right ascension 13 11 29.9 Redshift 7.6 Constellation Virgo | Declination −01° 19′ 19″ Group or cluster Abell 1689 | |
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Distance 13 billion light-years
(light travel distance) Mass 7009170000000000000♠1.7×10 M☉ Similar Abell 1689, CL0024+17, Abell 1835 IR1916, Abell 2029, IOK‑1 | ||
A1689-zD1 is a galaxy in the Virgo constellation cluster. It was a candidate for the most distant and therefore earliest observed galaxy discovered as of February 2008, based on a photometric redshift.
If the redshift, z~7.6, is correct, it would explain why the galaxy's faint light reaches us at infrared wavelengths. It could only be observed with Hubble Space Telescope's Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS) and the Spitzer Space Telescope's Infrared Array Camera exploiting the natural phenomenon of gravitational lensing: the galaxy cluster Abell 1689, which lies between Earth and A1689-zD1, at a distance of 2.2 billion light-years from us, functions as a natural "magnifying glass" for the light from the far more distant galaxy which lies directly behind it, at 700 million years after the Big Bang, as seen from Earth.