Seeing Farther: Chandra Deep Field-South

Looking back in space and time
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Chandra Deep Field-South Interactive

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Dust heated by star formation and black holes is highlighted by infrared light.

Visible light offers glimpses into galaxy evolution, tracing stellar populations over cosmic time.

Ultraviolet emission highlights star formation through cosmic time.

This deep X-ray image reveals the growth of active supermassive black holes within distant galaxies.

Galaxies dominate this composite image, helping researchers trace how galaxies change over billions of years.

Infrared
Visible
Ultraviolet
X-ray
Multi-wavelength

A Story Of Seeing Farther: Chandra Deep Field-South

Providing a peek into more than 13 billion years of galaxy history and makeup.

By staring at the same area of the sky for extended periods, space-based telescopes have the ability to capture faint light that left distant objects in the universe billions of years ago—but is only now arriving at Earth. Known as deep fields, these four-dimensional observations allow researchers to study the makeup of the early universe and learn how galaxies change over time. Deep fields are selected because they avoid the densely populated disk of the Milky Way, ensuring the dust, stars, and other objects in our own galaxy do not obscure the view.

Researchers studied the Chandra Deep Field-South region with several telescopes in multiple wavelengths of light. These data allowed them to learn about the properties and the energetic processes that govern galaxies’ appearance and evolution. Surprisingly, they found that some of the earliest galaxies were brighter than expected, a byproduct of galaxies releasing incredibly high amounts of ionizing radiation. They also learned that black holes in the early universe mostly grew in bursts rather than through the slow accumulation of matter, and that galaxies grew from small clumps of hot, young stars made up of fewer elements, mostly hydrogen and helium. This image—and all deep fields—show us a sliver of the early universe. By observing distant galaxies and comparing them to galaxies much closer to us, researchers can learn about its evolution over 95% of cosmic history.

Quick Facts: Chandra Deep Field-South

Also known as: Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey-South field (GOODS-South field)

Farthest distance from Earth: Approximately 13 billion light-years

Type of object: Deep field

Location in the sky: Fornax Constellation

Did you know: This view was built from nearly 4,000 hours (166 days, 16 hours) of observations and includes thousands of galaxies—many of which contain a central black hole and are forming stars.

Explore More About Seeing Farther

Find out more with these additional resources from NASA’s Universe of Learning

Credits: Chandra Deep Field-South

Infrared image of the GOODS-South field from the Spitzer Space Telescope: JPL, Caltech

Visible light image of the GOODS-South field from the Hubble Space Telescope: NASA, ESA

Ultraviolet light image of the GOODS-South field from the Hubble Space Telescope: NASA, ESA

X-ray light image of the Chandra Deep Field-South from the Chandra X-ray Observatory: NASA

Multi-wavelength image of the Chandra Deep Field-South (infrared, visible, ultraviolet, X-ray): NASA, ESA, J. Depasquale (STScI)

Subject-matter expertise provided by Dr. Antara R. Basu-Zych

Produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute’s Office of Public Outreach