Zoom on dwarf galaxies in the GOODS field

This video zooms in on an area of the sky called the GOODS field, and reveals 18 tiny galaxies uncovered by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The puny galaxies, highlighted in the postage-stamp-sized images at the end of the sequence, existed 9 billion years ago and are brimming with star birth.

The dwarf galaxies are typically a hundred times less massive than the Milky Way galaxy yet are churning out stars at such a furious pace that their stellar population would double in just 10 million years.

The galaxies stood out in the Hubble images because the energy from all the new stars caused the oxygen in the gas surrounding them to light up like a bright fluorescent sign. The rapid star birth likely represents an important phase in the formation of dwarf galaxies, the most common galaxy type in the cosmos.

The galaxies are among 69 dwarf galaxies found in the GOODS and other fields.

Images of the individual galaxies were taken November 2010 to January 2011. The large image showing the location of the galaxies was taken between September 2002 and December 2004, and between September 2009 and October 2009.