WASHINGTON (TIP): Astronomers have observed deeper into space than ever before and identified seven new galaxies that formed just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang, including one that may be the oldest to date. Using Nasa‘s Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers uncovered a population of seven primitive galaxies that formed more than 13 billion years ago, when the universe was less than 4% of its present age.

The deepest images to date from Hubble yield the first statistically robust sample of galaxies that tells how abundant they were close to the era when galaxies first formed, Nasa said. The Hubble’s observations support the idea galaxies assembled continuously over time and also may have provided enough radiation to reheat, or re-ionize , the universe a few hundred million years after the theorized big bang.