Astronomers find most distant galaxy ever measured

MIAMI: Astronomers have located the most distant galaxy ever measured in the universe, and it looks like a bright blue mass of stars some 13.1 billion light-years from Earth.

The galaxy, called EGS-zs8-1, is "one of the brightest and most massive objects in the early universe," according to a statement from Yale University.

Calculating its exact distance from Earth was possible using the MOSFIRE instrument on the W.M. Keck Observatory´s 10-meter telescope in Hawaii, researchers said.

The galaxy was first spotted in images from NASA´s Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes.

Astronomers at Yale and the University of California, Santa Cruz say that EGS-zs8-1 is still forming stars rapidly, about 80 times faster than our galaxy, the Milky Way.

Details of the discovery were published Tuesday in the journal Astrophysical Journal Letters.