A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away were stars that had gone on hundreds of years undetected by humans—until the researchers using the Hubble Telescope found it. A research team has found the most distant galaxy in the universe yet, 30 billion light-years away. Learning about this galaxy could help astronomers shed light on what happened immediately following the Big Bang Theory.

“This is the most distant galaxy we’ve confirmed. We are seeing this galaxy as it was 700 million years after the Big Bang,” said Steven Finkelstein, lead researcher from the University of Texas at Austin.

The researchers used the Hubble Space Telescope to find the galaxy and then the ground-based Keck Observatory in Hawaii to confirm its distance. It takes light a very long time to travel from the outer edge of the Universe to us, and so the galaxy appears to us when we see it through the Hubble Telescope was 13.1 billion years ago.

The scientists were able to determine and confirm how far away the galaxy was by examining its color. The Universe is expanding, and as a result, everything is moving away from us, which causes their light waves to be stretched. As a result, we see far away objects as redder than they really are.

The galaxy has been named z8_GND_5296. The study published in the journal Nature. The system is small: about 1-2 percent the mass of the Milky Way and is rich in heavier elements. This galaxy also has an interesting feature: it is turning gas and dust into new stars at a very faster rate, producing hundreds of them at hundred times faster than our own galaxy can.

“One very interesting way to learn about the Universe is to study these outliers and that tells us something about what sort of physical processes are dominating galaxy formation and galaxy evolution,” said Finkelstein.

While the team of scientists is excited by this new discovery, they and other astronomers recognize the need to move forward in their research. Professor Alfonso Aragon-Salamanca, from the University of Nottingham, added: “This is an important step forward, but we need to continue looking for more.

“The further away we go, the closer we will get to discovering the very first stars that ever formed in the Universe. The next generation of telescopes will make this possible.”

The team will look further into the same galaxy they just discovered.