Image Right: An estimated 10,000 galaxies are revealed in humankind's deepest portrait of the visible universe ever. Photo credit: NASA/ESA/S. Beckwith(STScI) and The HUDF Team.

Astronomers today unveiled the deepest portrait of the visible universe ever taken. A one-million-second long exposure taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope (HST) may reveal the first galaxies to emerge from the so-called "dark ages" shortly after the big bang.