Mosaic of 10,000 galaxies

The new mosaic is the largest color image ever made by the orbiting telescope, covering an area of the sky about the apparent size of the full moon. This may not sound big, but it is 150 times the size of images made by an earlier survey of galaxies known as the Hubble Deep Field image.

In this case, the size of the picture is important, because narrow, if deep, images of the cosmos can give a misleading impression of what is out there.

The new image, created with Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys, is a patchwork of 63 squares showing the area around the constellation Fornax (The Laboratory Furnace) in the southern hemisphere.

Looking closely with high resolution, scientists found detailed pictures of some 10,000 galaxies, and expect there are thousands of other, fainter galaxies in the same field of view.

Images are available online at http:/www.mpia-hd.mpg.de/homes/bell/press_release/press.html