NASA's Hubble finds ten times more galaxies than previously thought

Photo Credits: NASA, ESA, the GOODS Team, and M. Giavalisco (University of Massachusetts, Amherst)

New Delhi: NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and other observatories reveals that our universe contains 10 times more galaxies than previously thought.

According to NASA, astronomers came to a conclusion that there are at least 10 times more galaxies in the observable universe than previously thought. This places the universe's estimated population at, minimally, 2 trillion galaxies.

The results have clear implications for galaxy formation, and also helps shed light on an ancient astronomical paradox

As per reports, a team led by Christopher Conselice of the University of Nottingham, UK found that 10 times as many galaxies were packed into a given volume of space in the early universe than found today.

The galaxies are relatively small and faint, with masses similar to those of the satellite galaxies surrounding the Milky Way.

When they merged to form larger galaxies the population density of galaxies in space gets dwindled. The research team reports in a paper to be published in The Astrophysical Journal that the galaxies are not evenly distributed throughout the universe's history.

Conselice explained "These results are powerful evidence that a significant galaxy evolution has taken place throughout the universe's history, which dramatically reduced the number of galaxies through mergers between them - thus reducing their total number. This gives us a verification of the so-called top-down formation of structure in the universe".

The team came to the conclusion that indeed there actually is such an abundance of galaxies that, in principle, every patch in the sky contains part of a galaxy, as reported.

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency.