New candidate for the throne

A group of Japanese astronomers said they found the oldest galaxy in the universe and this is considered a discovery that could compete with the other 'oldest galaxies' claims.

According to calculations by experts from the National Astronomical Observatory (Japan), this galaxy named SXDF-NB1006-2 formed 12.91 billion light-years ago. This study will be published in the Astrophysical Journal.

Photos taken through the Subaru telescope - (Photo: NAOJ)

The results draw from data collected from the Subaru and Keck telescopes at the top of Mauna Kea in Hawaii (USA).

A light year means the distance of light traveling in a long year, about 6,000 billion miles (1 mile is equivalent to 1.6 km).

Richard Ellis - an expert in the field of galaxy formation and the universe at the California Institute of Technology (USA) evaluated the report of a group of convincing Japanese experts than similar claims previously made by this group. Use methods that are widely recognized.

In 2010, a group of French experts used the Hubble telescope and claimed to have identified a galaxy 13.1 billion light-years away.

A year later, a group of experts in California and the United States came to Hubble to see the galaxy 13.2 billion light-years ago, according to a Nature report.

However, both Hubble telescopes and experts have not been able to validate their claims by other methods.

Prior to the statement of the Japanese expert group, a group of experts at Arizona State University (USA) also confirmed that it has found a galaxy 13 billion light years ago, thanks to the observatory in Chile.